


Rebirth

by UnapologeticallyMeatwad



Category: Kim Possible (Cartoon)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Demisexuality, Eventual Kim/Original Character relationship, Experimental Fiction, Gen, Gender Body Horror, Kim 'dies' in Chapter 1 hence the Major Character Death tag, Tragedy with a happy ending, Trans Female Character, Trans Kim Possible, almost everyone except Kim Ron Drakken and Shego are dead by the time the story starts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:08:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28112166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnapologeticallyMeatwad/pseuds/UnapologeticallyMeatwad
Summary: Kimberly Ann Possible is nine years old and homeless. She doesn’t really remember much, she just knows she’s a girl even though people always call her a boy.Then she sees a news report on the big TV in the city: Kimberly Ann Possible the Former Teen Hero (no relation) has been killed in action. She died in the same warehouse that little Kimmie snuck into the other day to steal food from. Authorities were not able to recover a body.Kimmie thinks the police are being goofballs and decides to find Kim Possible herself.[kim rebuilds herself, piece by piece]
Relationships: Kim Possible & Ron Stoppable
Comments: 17
Kudos: 13





	1. please don't grow up to be like me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim goes on her last mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: this chapter is incredibly intense and visceral, especially for trans readers. this is the gender body horror chapter. this story does have a happy ending.

Her head is fuzzy. She doesn’t know what hit her, but it was strong. It isn’t that painful, surprisingly enough, just incredibly overwhelming. She feels her skin shift at speeds that aren’t possible, and her bones crack and condense. If anything, she might just be losing her mind. That’s fine. She’s lost it before. No big and all that. 

When she comes to, it takes Kim far too long to realize that she’s not on her knees, but standing on both feet. Everything seems bigger and now pain is settling in; her head throbs and pulsates as she looks around the room warily. 

It’s a lab, a gigantic lab in some kind of warehouse with some kind of death ray at the center. Death ray is deactivated though. It was easy enough to do. 

There are people in red costumes running about and a man with a blue face leering at her from a few yards away. She’s supposed to know his name. It takes a second.

 _Drakken_.

Kim steps forward, and it’s her bare feet that plod along the metal. It’s cold. It creases upward where the crooked steel panels meet, and she bends her foot around one to feel it. Why is she barefoot though? She should have shoes and socks on. 

Kim looks back dimly, and sees most of her clothing on the floor behind her. Pants, utility belt, combat boots, everything. How did they fall off? She looks down at her body and sees her purple tunic hanging off of her shoulders like a dress. That doesn’t make sense either. Something’s wrong. 

_Who am I again?_

The blue man—Drakken—she has to remind herself, and the green lady—Shego?—come towards her. Both of them are laughing up a storm. She’s not sure what’s so funny. She marches towards them, trying to look as serious as she can. She has to fight them (probably.) 

Something wrong happens again. Drakken and the green lady are way too big. Kim has to look up at them to meet their eyes, like way up. And that’s when she notices her hair isn’t touching her shoulders. She claps a hand to her head and it’s short, really short. Like a buzzcut. The bad guys are still laughing. 

“What did you do to me?” Kim says in a small voice that cracks like a teenage boy’s. Everything is going wrong today. Drakken howls, and pounds Shego on the back. Kim doesn’t get what’s so funny, so she strolls past them, but she doesn’t get far. Shego stops Kim by gently pushing against her chest. Her flat chest. Kim touches it to confirm. Flat. Kim touches her cheek. Soft. Round. 

Hand small too. She holds one out. Wrist is thin and skinny. 

She whispers something to herself. Speech is slow, cadence is soft, voice is high.

She takes in a deep breath, and speaks clinically. “You turned me into a child, didn’t you?”

Drakken stops laughing and flashes a dark look at her. “Aw boo, you just love to take the fun out of things.”

“This is boring,” Kim deadpans and turns away, plodding over to the staircase where she can leave to go home and figure out how to undo this. The age regression thing is boring. Kim’s gone up against it before, heck, she’s even used it to do undercover work. Her memories are starting to come back in. 

_Just don’t let it get to you, Possible. These things always come with a mindfuck. Stay stable and they can’t mess with your brain chemistry._

There’s a loud twisting sound that pricks Kim’s ears up. She looks back to see Drakken adjusting a dial on his big dumb machine. Sighing, Kim walks back over to him and stares at Drakken, then cracks into an ugly smirk. “You’re terrified of me.”

Even with her high pitched voice, it’s chilling. Kim’s been scary for the last twenty years of her life; she’s been the perfect agent ever since her parents died of cancer the same year her brothers died in a car crash, which was about three years ago now.

The same year she snapped and had to take the divorce after twenty years of marriage. Doesn’t matter. She feels bad for Ron, but she has to be the perfect agent, and to create that you need tragedy. 

“You have destroyed me, Drew,” Kim spits. “You’ve hurt so many people I loved. But you haven’t broken me yet. I love watching you try though, I laugh everytime I get home and wipe the blood away. Go ahead, turn me into a twelve year old girl. It doesn’t change anything.”

_There. Good soldier._

Drakken continues to twist away at his gun. “You are _so_ wrong. You’re not a twelve year old girl.”

Kim raises an eyebrow. “I know my body.”

“Do you? Because you’re not a girl anymore,” he laughs and the gun glows up again. “And I’ve decided twelve is far too old for you.”

“Do your worst—”

The beam hits her again. She blinks and stumbles into a metal railing behind her. Her skin’s shifting and this time she fights hard enough to stay conscious, she knows what she’s dealing with now. She takes one step forward just as the blur leaves her, and she’s smaller. It’s going to take a moment for her to—

—she gets so small the tunic slips off her shoulders and she sees her tiny skinny bare body that’s—that’s—no no, she’s not a boy, no, that’s not right. Cold air hits her hard and she yanks the tunic out of the air, pressing it over her little body. Drakken and Shego are massive to her and she bites back a scream, her voice so high it hurts her ears.

It’s not even over yet, she grabs an iron bar besides her for support and she feels it run under her fingers as she regresses more and more. 

She thinks about Ron, she thinks about the planet she’s supposed to protect, and tries not to cry because she’s about to let them down.

Kim’s mind shatters. 

Her whole life fades, like it was all just pretend. She’s scared and on the floor, crying.

She shakes, teeth chattering. Her voice is really high and she doesn’t know how old she is, but she knows she’s really, really little. Kim doesn’t like being little, she doesn’t like not being in control.

No that’s not why she’s so scared, she’s always been little. She’s a little girl, no that’s wrong too. 

She’s a boy. She touched her um, thing, and it was different. Yep! He remembers now. He’s a little boy and… he doesn’t know where he is. That’s why he’s upset?

No, no, that’s still not it. Confused. So confused.

The mean blue faced man rips the tunic off him—and the cold air hits him so hard. He screams and sobs, nails catching on the tunic before it’s gone. He pulls on it. “Imsorryimsorryimsorryimsorry—” 

“So much for laughing at me, huh?” The scary man lets go of the tunic and it falls back over Kim.

Kim scrunches up and shakes. It’s so cold.

The man leers at him. “What’s 5 times 5?”

Kim blinks back tears. He doesn’t know the answer to that. He hasn’t learned that in school yet, no no, he has, he just—his head hurts so much. 

Everything is leaving his mind so fast.

_Kim. Focus. Please. Remember. Betty trained you for this. Hang on._

_I’m forty years old. I’ve been with Global Justice for 22. I have a responsibility. I owe people so much._

_I need to live. Please._

_“Hey lady,_ ” a little boy in her head squeaks. “ _C-can you help me? I’m scared.”_

Kim almost punches the air. She fucking did it. She fucking pulled it off. She split her new consciousness into two people. It won’t last forever though.

Now go.

* * *

 _“_ — _I’m really cold and I don’t think these mean people like me,_ ” the little boy says.

“ _That’s okay,_ ” Kim tells him, “ _You’re safe with me, I can protect you. Just listen to my voice, okay?_ ”

“ _Are you one of my imaginary friends?_ ”

“ _No, I’m you. It’s complicated. Stay with me, I need your help._

* * *

Kim learned this at work a long time ago—trauma breaks minds. Hold on to something if you’re falling. Take something with you. Don’t let go.

Kim focuses and takes her imploding brain _s_ and smooshes them together. She can’t transfer everything, but she can leave some nuggets behind for her new self to hold onto. The brain pools visualize into two massive rings in an abyss pressing together, and creating a—

* * *

_“Ooh! Ooh! I know this, this is a, um, venn diagram! We use these in school!”_

_“It’s not a venn diagram, those are_ — _wait, no I can use that. Yes honey, it’s a venn diagram.”_

* * *

The circles touch and an oval appears at the center. It’s small but limited. Pass the knowledge into that oval, Kim, you don’t have long.

* * *

Kim thinks. She needs to be precise. “ _I’m a woman, I know he keeps saying we’re a boy, but I’m a girl. Do you understand?_ ”

“ _Ooh, but he’s not talking to you, lady. He’s talking to me and I’m a boy._ ”

“ _Right_ ,” Kim winces. Go slow. You can’t just tell someone they are trans and expect it to stick. You need him to trust you. “ _We’re the same person, I promise. I’m feeling everything you are. I also feel little and scared and_ —”

She feels even her adult mind shrink into itself, regressing too. She starts to feel the same fears as the boy as the pitch of her voice rises. “— _I wanna cry too, but I needta get this done with you first, okay?”_

That’s okay, Possible it’s okay, breath in. You need to be a kid to befriend your new self.

“ _Okay, I didn’t know you were little like me.”_

 _“Yes, we’re both kids. Sorry for confusing you,_ ” Kim feels her mind threatening to turn into mush. It takes everything she has to keep it afloat. “ _Can I control our body for a second? Will you let me?”_

“ _Okay, can you tell them I’m really cold.”_

_“Of course, honey.”_

* * *

“How old are you?” the blue man, um, Drakken snaps Kim, the real Kim, out of her moment.

Kim panics, her fingers twitch in and out as she shuffles back. “I’m a grown up!” she spits out. She really hopes she’s right.

“Don’t lie to us, little boy.”

Wait he said she’s a boy, is she a boy? No no, she just figured that out. Fuck, this is hard. She understands why the boy is scared, she’s terrified right now. Maybe she wasn’t even a grownup to begin with. She remembers being twelve earlier.

“S-s-s-sorry, I’m, I’m, twelve.”

Drakken smirks. “Liar.”

* * *

 _“Ha ha, liar liar pants on fire!”_ the little boy laughs.

 _“Stop!”_ Kim screams, trying not to cry in front of this little boy making fun of her. _“It’s not funny, I don’t know. I can’t remember, can you help me?_

_“Okaaaay… what’s four plus five?”_

* * *

Nine. Kim knows that. She can add numbers real good. “I turned nine a week ago!”

“Good girl. Shego, I think we should ▬◙■▓▓◘◙■ ▓◘◙■ ▓♦■▓▓◘▒▓♦▒▀◙█.”

Kim blinks. She should know what they’re talking about, but they’re grown-ups and they do grown up talk and… she doesn’t understand anything they’re saying. Try as she might, Kim is just a dumb kid now. This is happening too fast, she needs more time.

Her head hurts so fucking much.

* * *

 _“Don’t be so sad, Kimmie,”_ the little boy says. _“We’re gonna be ok.”_

_“No we’re not!!! I can’t ‘member anything and—and—what did you just call me?”_

_“Kimmie! I think it’s cute.”_

_“Kimmie. Kimmie. My name is… Kim..berly Ann Possible.”_

_“Ooh. Mine’s_ —”

 _“Don’t say it, it’s going to mess my head up. Listen to me,_ **_our_ ** _name is Kimberly Ann Possible.”_

_“Ew, that’s a girl’s name.”_

_“I know, but we’re a girl. Anyone can be a girl, okay? Please trust me.”_

_“Grosssssss…”_ Then something changes. The little boy’s voice lifts with curiosity as _her_ whole self is altered by this one idea Kim successfully plants. 

It’s working. It’s actually working. 

_“Really? I’m a… girl. I always thought about that an’ stuff but I was scared I’d get beat up if I told anyone!”_

Kim smiles. _“I’m really proud of you for telling me, being a girl is fun, isn’t it?”_

_“Okay… okay! Yeah, we’re a girl, so I’m Kim Possible too?”_

_“Yep!”_

* * *

Okay good, those are two seeds. She got her name and gender through. 

The gap is closing, she knows in the real world right now she’s curled up on the floor screaming. The mean lady is trying to pick her up and she keeps thrashing her off. 

She tries not to think about it, it’s making it hard to get this done.

* * *

 _“I have bad news, focus on me, okay?”_ Kim urges.

_“‘Kay.”_

_“Our mommy and daddy died a few years ago, they had um, I don’t ‘member they were sick.”_

The child doesn’t say anything at first, and then a twinge of anger comes to her voice. _“...Why are you lying to me?”_

 _“Huh? I’m not lying! My mommy and daddy died and_ —”

 _“No, Kimmie, they abandoned us,”_ the little Kim says as the brains start to make sense of this new world. “ _Then somebody beat me up at the shelter I hadta go to and I got really scared_ —”

 _“No stop that’s not true_ —”

 _“Yes it is!”_ the child screams. “ _I don’t have a home, I sleep in boxes, and… and…”_

* * *

Kim clamps the sides of her head as even more knowledge, as even more _potential_ washes away. But she can’t stop it. It’s her head telling her the truth. 

She’s never been to school because no one had the chance to make her go. She doesn’t know how to read or write, most words are too big for her. She has no friends, she doesn’t really know what it’s like to talk to people. She’s super immature because of that, so far removed from the real Kim.

Another shift. She doesn’t live anywhere, she sleeps in alleyways and eats very little. Her brain flares waves through her body that change everything. 

Her body shrinks rapidly as she gets skinny and bony. Her lips go dry and she feels incredibly hungry. Kim shrinks more and more, becoming weaker and frailer as the lack of any kind of healthy nutrition majorly stunts her growth. She shrinks to the size of a kindergartener even though she’s still nine.

She tries to regain control, but it’s so hard, she can’t stop thinking of how hungry she is.

Kim hears her own uncontrollable weeping, knows it’s not really her, and squeezes in tighter. She needs to regain control.

* * *

 _“Our little brothers are gone too,”_ Kim interrupts the child’s tantrum, but still her voice shakes. She’s starting to get kinda scared of the kid, she’s tryin’ to be nice but they keep getting upset and, and, maybe it’s because she’s a bad friend. She’s always been a bad friend, she’s no good.

_“Little? I don’t ‘member them. That’s so sad, ‘They musta been really little, because we’re so little, Kimmie.”_

Stupid Kimmie, always wrong about stuff. _“Oh, you’re right. Maybe they were our big brothers. I’m sure of it. Sorry. Our big brothers died.”_ That doesn’t sound right, but she’s being dumb and then—

—absolute—

—excruciating—

—pain.

She’s dying. She howls and cries and when it’s over, Kim, the real Kim, giggles mindlessly. “ _I think I was pretendin’! I was lyin’ about being an adult earlier and knowin' all this stuff, do you want to play?”_

 _“What?”_ the other Kim seems a little concerned at the sudden change. “ _I’m confused, I thought you wanted to take care of me.”_

 _“How can I? I’m a little kid, come on let’s play!_ ” Kim giggles. 

_“No you’re not, you’re not little, I promise. You been spendin’ all this time tryna tell me about this stuff you know, Kimmie.”_

_“Oh, um. Okay, I’m… I’m really scared.”_

Kim can’t remember anything now. Her parents’ names, whether or not they were big or little brothers, the fact that she used to save the world, what town she’s from… wait, there’s one thing. It’s a boy. His name. What’s his name? 

“ _We don’t have a mommy and daddy to take care of us,_ ” Kim whines. “ _I don’t ‘member enough, I’m ‘sposed to save the world a-a-and…”_

 _“It’s okay, Kimmie,_ ” the other Kim coos, snagging Kim’s waning confidence from her. “ _You’re really smart, and really brave. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings, we’re um_ —” the other Kim hesitates, she may be nine, but something in her little noggin is telling her to protect the little girl. That’s what Kim Possible does. “— _I’m going to protect you, okay? No matter what happens, we’re in this together.”_

 _“Thank you,”_ Kim squeaks. “ _I remembered something. It’s really important.”_

_“Okay, little Kimmie. I’ll ‘member it too.”_

_“Our best friend is still alive. He kinda hates us but um, he can help. His name was… um… um… oh no. No no no no no no…”_

_“Don’t cry, sh sh sh… it’s okay, we’re going to be okay. Let’s take a nap.”_

_“NO! How could I forget his name?! He was my best friend!”_

_“We’ll figure it out! ‘Kay? We’re Kim Possible! We can do anything! Right?”_

_“You’re right, thank you for being nice to me. I’m kinda sleepy, I think I have to go now. Can ya do me a favor?”_

_“Of course I will, silly!”_

_“Can you help me save the world?”_

* * *

The merge closes and never reopens.

This is Kim Possible.

* * *

Little Kimmie snaps back and she sees herself looking up at the big lady’s chin. She’s being cradled like a baby. She looks around at the passing scenery, tears dry on her cheeks. Her head is whirling. She was talking to herself for so long in her head, maybe it was one of her imaginary friends. That was mean of them to distract her for so long.

“Sorry it had to be like this,” the lady says, setting Kimmie down in a room and opening up a locker near them. “Doc said it’s the only way, holy shit did you regress even more?”

Kimmie doesn’t know what that word means, she just wants to go home, wherever that is tonight. 

“How old are you?” the lady snaps.

“I’m n-n-n-nine,” Kimmie winces, hands gripping onto the tunic eclipsing her, squeezing it tight. “I th-think, n-n-no one celebrates my birthday anymore.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, m-m-a-a-a-a’am. I’m just really small for my age.”

The lady raises an eyebrow. “That… doesn’t seem right. You’re not supposed to be a small kid…”

Kimmie doesn’t know what that means but she doesn’t want to ask. “I’ve always b-b-been-n really l-l-l-little, m-ma’am.”

“You’re not supposed to be a nervous wreck either,” the lady adds on.

The lady groans and tosses Kimmie some rags. Kimmie eyes them, and scampers over, doing her best to put them on. But they’re way too big for her, everything’s always too big for her. They tumble off to the floor and she starts shaking in the cold, teeth chattering. 

“D-do you have anyth-thing sm-smaller? I’m s-s-sorry, ma’am. I really appreciate y-you h-helping me.”

The lady scoffs and tosses some other rags at her. Kimmie hurriedly puts it on. It’s still slipping off her shoulders, and she remembers it’s cold outside. She thinks she had a nice jacket earlier, she wants to ask if she can go find it but she doesn’t want to get yelled at. And this lady seems sad too, Kimmie doesn’t want to bother her. But it’s so cold.

“C-c-can you h-help me tie my clothes down a little?” Kimmie asks sheepishly. “I think we can make it fit me good that way! I just don’t know how to tie my knots…”

The lady gets down on her knees and helps her, Kimmie tries to watch her hands to memorize it but the hands block the actual knot and she doesn’t learn anything. It’s really hard for her to follow along, even if she concentrates.

Kimmie’s head kinda hurts but she’s pretty sure she broke into this scary place to get some food. That has to be it. But she didn’t even find any food, because she’s such a dumb loser. She starts to cry.

The lady looks at Kimmie all sad like and shakes her head, tears welling up in her eyes. “Kiddo, don’t worry. You have parents to go home to, right?”

“No,” Kimmie sniffles. “They h-h-h-hate me, they kicked me out when I was l-little,” she sniffs a huge booger back in and she thinks she swallows it through her nose. “I don’t have anywhere to go! I ran away from the sh-sh-shelter because the other kids were m-m-mean to me a-and… please don’t make me go back out there. I’m really hungry.”

The lady looks so angry now, and squeezes the bridge of her nose. “This isn’t funny anymore. Come on. Are you a boy or are you a girl?”

Kimmie hesitates. She doesn’t want to get hit for lying. “I’m a g-g-girl, I kn-know I don’t look like one, ma’am, b-but I’m a girl a-and...”

When the lady doesn’t say anything, Kimmie keeps talking. This might be her chance to find a home, even though this lady is kinda mean. “I’m really sc-sc-scared. I—I don’t have any food, I dunno where I’m gonna sleep tonight… can you please help me? My mommy and daddy—”

“ _SHUT UP!_ ” 

Kimmie flinches, expecting to get hit. But when she looks up the lady is crying. 

“Please,” Kimmie tries again. “Please help me. E-everybody h-h-h-hates me a-and—” she hiccups. “I’m so hungry—”

The lady lunges at her and Kimmie flinches, covering her head and ducking. But she doesn’t hit her. Kimmie winces anyways and looks at her.

“Kim, is that you?” the scary lady asks. “Are you still in there?”

Kimmie likes that name a lot. But she’s too scared now to speak, she doesn’t like it when mean people touch her. The woman shakes her and it hurts. “Y-y-y-y-y-you’re h-h-h-holding-holding m-m-m-me t-t-t-t-t-t-toooooo—” Her jaw locks in and her eyes water, she fidgets to get away. The lady finally lets her go and Kimmie backs off, jaw still not letting her talk. She just stares now, hoping the lady will help her.

“This is so fucked up. Stay there, sweetheart, okay?” the lady says. “I’m gonna get my friend. He’s going to bring you back, okay?”

Last time someone told Kimmie that they’d bring her back, it was to the shelter where she got bullied all the time for being so tiny and girly.

She’s really weak and it’s not easy for her to run, but she has to. She’s a—a—

“ _You’re a survivor_ ,” her imaginary friend tells her. She sounds sad. “ _You can do anything._ ”

Kimmie doesn’t want to run, she wants to hug her imaginary friend and tell her she’s going to be okay too, but she doesn’t know how to. And she’s still too scared to speak.

“ _Kimmie. It’s okay. You’re okay. I’m going to do my best to protect you. We’re best friends, alright?”_

Kimmie nods and pretends her imaginary friend is with her, runs away, and doesn’t look back. When she finally finds a box in an alleyway to hide under, she works up the nerve to speak again.

“You’re a survivor too, Kimmie,” she tells them. “We both are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading, I wrote 10,000 words of this in one day because I'm just so into it
> 
> I want to be clear about something before we move on, because I always get this question in stories where I do this sort of thing - there's not going to be a magical girl transformation that fixes everything. kim has to grow up again, but she'll learning a li'l somethin' along the way : )
> 
> for cis readers who don't understand why there's no fix-it button, it's because it makes me feel like shit to read that sort of thing. being trans isn't the most fun, but it can be beautiful. it's who Kim is now. and she loves it. that's why there's no fix-it. 
> 
> this is going to get pretty trippy/experimental at times so if you have questions, it's ok to ask in the comments


	2. i wish i could hold you but if you get any closer i might kill you instead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Little Kimmie has a nightmare and learns about the death of an icon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: graphic depictions of violence and disturbing imagery, first section has one piece that is not mobile user friendly

Kim is eighteen again, and the spaceship to humanity’s First Contact is violently exploding. Her boyfriend is descending from the skies proudly. She can’t speak. Who is this person coming to her? Is that really Ron?

Kim hugs him compulsively. She’s so thankful he’s alive at least. She pulls back and opens her mouth but no words come out. She forgets how to talk and make sounds whenever she has a panic attack.

_um im confused is this why I can’t talk sometimes either?_

Ugh, this little kid. Even now, Kim can’t get this new body of hers out of her head. Or maybe Kim’s the parasite and should just give up already.

Reality morphs and Kim gains a second set of hands that sign for her since this Kim won’t. “ _Ron, you just killed them. Are you okay?”_

Ron knows sign language for some reason and laughs. “Yeah, KP. I’m fine.”

Kim didn’t develop these symptoms until her 30s. Something’s wrong.

Kim cringes, teeth chattering, graduation robes in tatters. She signs desperately to him. “ _Really? You felt nothing?”_

“It won’t be that bad when you kill them, KP, you’ll be fine.”

Kim blinks, why did he just say that? 

_kim that boy is really nice to you, remember? he wouldn’t tell you that_

_remember kim people love you_

Kim reaches towards Ron to hold him and now her hand is outstretched, a gun is in hand and _BANG!_ Ii scares the shit out of her. She backs off. A man in a suit falls back into the snow covered graveyard, head exploding as the bullet runs through his head. Kim’s first kill.

She doesn’t remember what the guy looked like, but she knows what his blasted open skull looked like. Kim trods through the snow, listening it to it crunch under her boots.

_ewwww, didya hafta shoot him there?_

A child runs to her side and clutches her leg. Kim’s hand falls to their head of hair. 

Agent Will Du, her partner, tugs on Kim’s arm and she looks back to him, eyes vacant. “Kim, c’mon. We gotta get this kid out of here.”

“Not yet,” Kim drones, looking back to the body. 

“Kim, are you okay?” Will’s voice gets farther and farther away. She’s alone, staring at blood and guts.

“I’m waiting to feel something,” she tells the open abyss. She starts walking through the black, past the body.

_kim you’re so sad_

_how come no one helped you_

_well it’s okay im your new best friend now ill protect you_

A duplicate of Kim hits the ground besides her, wrestling with an invisible assailant. The Kim clone is covered in blood, a shard of glass sticking out of her ribs. She screams and hisses like a monster.

“I’m still waiting,” Kim moans, walking faster. 

The abyss becomes a corridor lined with TV screens replaying the worst moments of her life.

“ _KP, if you don’t get your shit together, we’re going to need to break up.”_

_“Possible, stop lingering in my office. I don’t give a fuck you killed the wrong guy, he was a rat bastard anyways. Go cry at someone who cares.”_

_“Kimmie-cub, your therapist called and told us you’ve been skipping sessions...”_

_“Kim, what happened to you?”_

_“KP, I’ll never stop saying I love you. But I’m not going to lie, it hurts when you don’t say it.”_

Kim laughs darkly. “Mua. Ha. **Haaaaaaa**.”

She bumps into a little trans girl on the road and feels a need to take care of them, but by the time she drops down to their level, Kim’s a scrawny little stupid trans girl too. “I’m ‘sposed to be sadder.”

“About what?” the Kim that’s lucky enough to live asks.

“Being you.”

The girl’s eyes water. Good. “Oh. That’s kinda mean. I like being me.”

“Oh? I hate you. We were so fucking close and  
then you made up that  
shit about our parents  
kicking us out and guess what that did genius  
it shrank our mother fucking brain  
we look like we’re five and it’s all your fault. You’re lucky  
I can’t feel anything or I’d fucking  
 **kill you**.”

The little girl backs away on her hands and knees. She’s won’t fucking learn. Feel nothing you crybaby. Be like Kim.

For some reason that’s what does it, Kim’s little face twists into anger, her eyes go yellow, she grows fangs and she grabs the little girl’s arm and twists it until it bruises.

“Learn to feel nothing you little shit.”

Kim forces the kid’s face face down and reaches into their mouth, gripping the jaw and—

_Crack._

_im sorry you’re so sad kim_

_don’t cry. s’okay. i forgive you._

* * *

**YEAR ONE**

_(kimmie is nine)_

Little Kimmie screams, almost bumping her head on the trashcan she knocked over to sleep in. She’s breathing really hard. She looks around the alleyway. She’s alone. Morning light is coming in, and her body aches from sleeping in the stupid trashcan. She thought it was a good idea at the time ‘cuz it was raining.

She had a bad dream again. Try as she might, Kimmie can never remember her dreams. She just knows they’re really violent, sometimes they physically hurt her. It’s weird ‘cause Kimmie’s never been hit. No one would dare hurt her. But. She always thinks people are going to hit her.

It doesn’t make sense. But her head always tells her to be careful to not get hit. She slouches against the trash can. Even though she can’t remember, her dreams still make her scared. She stays small in the alley for an hour, just thinking about how scared and upset she is. She wishes these dumb dreams would go away.

It’s been three days since she got caught stealing by that mean lady. And the mean lady was nice enough to give her new clothes! They’re kinda papery and too big for her but it’s okay, she was trying to be nice and Kimmie will always remember that. 

It’s weird ‘cause Kimmie was positive she knew this city like the back of her hand, she’s been on these streets for years now. But she doesn’t know anything. It’s all new. 

She ate a couple of oranges yesterday. And the day before she found a gigantic bag of stale bagels in a dumpster, but it was way too big for her to carry, so she stayed in the dumpster for a long time, eating a bagel every time she got hungry. 

Someone yelled at her to get out of the dumpster anyways and she got too scared to remember where it was. 

“Kimmie, you need to eat food today,” Kimmie gets up, trying to be strong. “We’re going to try asking someone to buy us somethin’, okay? I think it’ll be fine. Just some bread, they don’t need to go too out of their way. Hm. Maybe water too, yeah I’m thirsty! Hee hee.”

Kimmie talks to herself all day, sometimes she sings songs she makes up on the fly. But um, not yet. She’s still really scared. No singing, but she can talk, that’s okay she thinks.

“You’re really brave this morning, Kimmie, going outside so early in the day…”

* * *

Kimmie feels really guilty about it, but she steals some money from people. She’s in the big city, and only three and a half feet tall (and forty pounds, if not less.) She sinks in easily and there’s pockets everywhere. She’s so small the grownups don’t even feel her hand snap in to steal stuff.

She never takes too much. Like she takes a twenty dollar bill and gives it back, because that’s so much money and they probably worked really hard to get it. 

Counting is kind of hard for her but she takes money because she’d like to buy at least a few things today to eat. Like she gets a slice of pizza from the convenience store! It’s the most delicious thing she’s ever had. 

She also steals stuff too. Some nuts, some fruit, and then she starts to feel really guilty and gives herself a timeout. That’s when it gets dark and she can’t go out anymore. This night she tries to sleep in a park because the grass is so soooooft, but mean adults with flashlights scream at her, telling her she’s not allowed to fall asleep on the grass. So she tries one of the benches and they yell at her some more.

Grownups are so weird. She doesn’t get much sleep that night, but it’s okay. Less nightmares for her! Tomorrow she wants to buy a stuffed animal to be her friend, but she doesn’t even know where to go to buy that, or if she’ll have enough money.

* * *

Kimmie finds out about Kim Possible when she’s out looking for food. Pickpocketing is easiest in the city square, especially when there’s a crowd, because she’s so small it’s easy for her to blend in. So she strolls through, stealing money and other things from people’s pockets while they all gather to listen to the big TV.

Dumb grown-ups, always watchin’ TV.

Then the TV says a name, and Kimmie finds herself watching too.

“ _Kim Possible died in action trying to protect New York City from the evil Doctor Drakken._ ”

Immediately, hot tears come to Kimmie’s eyes and she freezes. Kim Possible is her name too! And wow, she sounds like a really nice person. Always helpin’ people and savin’ the world. She wipes her eyes and looks around. She’s too little to see the TV, even with her neck craned up all the way. So she finds some courage and tugs the nearest sleeve.

A lady Kimmie stole five dollars from looks down at her absently.

Kimmie clasps her hands together cutely. “Can you pick me up? I wanna see the TV.”

The woman scoffs and looks away. Grown ups can be so mean. Kimmie really wants to see, but they don’t wanna help her. Kimmie snorts and pushes through the crowd as hard as she can, fighting to get the front. Legs and hips keep thumping her but she doesn’t care, she wants to see. After a few minutes she gets to the front and looks up.

Kim Possible was really pretty. She looked a lot like Kimmie. She had red hair just like hers! Her hair was longer though, that’s okay, Kimmie is gonna grow her hair out to look just like that. Kim Possible had green eyes too. 

But Kim Possible isn’t anything like Kimmie. She’s strong. She like saved the world and stuff. There’s a lot of video footage of her swingin’ around and fightin’ bad guys. Kim Possible dedicated her life to protecting people. Kimmie wishes Kim Possible were still alive so she could protect her from getting hurt by bad guys.

She starts crying some more. She doesn’t know this girl but it makes her really sad that someone would hurt her. 

Kimmie obviously doesn’t really know Kim Possible that well, but she decides that she is her hero. She wants to grow up to be like her. She kinda has to anyways because they have the same name and stuff. It makes Kim want to eat more food so she can grow up like normal kids, and then maybe she can save the world too.

Eventually the big TV stops talking about Kim Possible and people start to filter out. But not Kimmie. Kimmie waits. In case they show another picture of Kim Possible again, she’s so pretty and fun to look at, but they don’t. 

They do show a picture of the mean sort of nice lady who gave Kimmie the rags she’s been wearing for the past few days. She died too.She was found dead underneath the bloody hands of the evil Doctor Dragon, the man who killed Kim Possible.

Wait.

Kimmie focuses with a precision she’s never had before. She really focuses on what the big TV is saying.

Kimmie has the same exact name as Kim Possible. She looks like her too.

And um, that lady died… probably near where Kim Possible died! Both killed by Dragonman. And Kimmie was with them.

She smiles to herself, imaging a world where she gets to be Kim Possible. But Kimmie knows, there’s no way she’s _that_ Kim Possible. Kimmie is small and meek and always scared and cries a lot. Kim Possible is brave and strong and doesn’t cry ever, she’s a hero. Kimmie can just tell looking at pictures of her.

Kimmie can only wish to be like that.

The mean lady’s body was found, but Kim Possible’s wasn’t; there’s only signs that Kim got vaporized.

Kimmie starts giggling to herself. These police people are being dumb dumbs! Why would only one body be found? That doesn’t make sense at all. Kim Possible is still alive, and Kimmie is gonna find her. That can be how she saves the world.

* * *

Even though Kimmie thinks Kim Possible isn’t actually dead, she still goes to her funeral. Maybe there will be some evidence there. She wishes she had a tweed coat and hat, with maybe like a bubble pipe! People would take her more seriously if she had that stuff when she interrogates them.

She’s anxious all morning though, because she doesn’t know where the funeral is because she can’t read. So she just kinda follows big groups of people around all day and eventually it works out, and she gets to the funeral. There’s hundreds maybe thousands maybe billions of people gathered for Kim Possible, and there are several big TV screens showing what’s happening on the stage, which Kimmie likes because she doesn’t have to push through the crowd this time. Everyone can see the TV there’s so many.

The funeral is sooooo booooring thoooough… all these grown ups are boring! 

There’s an eyepatch lady though! That’s cool. Kimmie was thinkin’ about spacing out and pickpocketin’ but the eyepatch lady is cool. 

Actually no she’s so boring! All she does is be serious and say stuff Kimmie doesn’t understand. Which makes Kimmie cry because this isn’t what’s supposed to happen, and she’s hungry. There’s a fruit stand she can always steal food from around this time of day, and she kinda wishes she were there instead. 

Kim Possible would want Kimmie to grow up big and strong, Kimmie kinda plays it out in her head.

Ghost girl Kim Possible holds little Kimmie’s shoulders gently, just as how she likes it, and talks to her so softly. _You can investigate later, okay?_ Kim Possible laughs, mussing Kimime’s hair, making her giggle. _Good detectives work their best when they’re fed._

So Kimmie decides to leave, but right at that moment that she turns away, a man with a high voice starts talking. Kimmie has _never_ heard him before but he sounds so _familiar!_ She turns around and finds herself surrounded by big dumb grownups again. She has to push through to find a spot to look at the TV.

“ _Kim Possible was my wife for almost twenty years_ ,” the man says, his voice cracking like he’s a teenager. “ _We had a divorce a while back, but even then, we still loved each other so much. It was just kinda… hard. I really wish I could have spent more time with her, even though I probably knew her best.”_

Kimmie finds a spot and she sees his face. Pale with adult freckles, messy blonde hair with hints of silver creeping in, and a round chin with dark brown eyes. She knows this man. Somehow. She really does.

She says his name out loud. “Ron Stoppable.”


	3. it means so much to me that you can make him smile like that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie gets to eat food with her new best friend, plus some backstory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: graphic depictions of violence, suicide ideation, explicit references to why several major characters are now dead

It was late, and he was pretty bored. He hadn’t seen Kim in—what? A month now? It was typical of this to happen. They still talked over the phone when they could, but not for the past week. Not from a lack of trying.

Ron wasn’t bored that night, God, ha ha, that is such a  _ lie. _ He was livid. He was just pretending to be bored.

A few days before, his best friend, Yori, was found dead. It was so sudden. No suspects, no evidence, nothing. Incredibly professional and almost certainly targeted.

And Kim couldn’t bother to answer her fucking phone. He was sure she was busy but fuck dude. It was  _ Yori _ . Ron couldn’t make it to the funeral because of work and he _ needed s _ omeone.

Then the doorbell to their apartment rang. Ron blinked, and moved over cautiously. Sort of weird. They never had guests. He opened the door and waiting for him was Kim. Stone eyed, stoic Kim. 

“Hi,” Ron squeaked. “Um. You forget your keys?”

“No,” Kim grunted and rolled her shoulders back. “Ask me the question.”

She said it weird. Really fast. Like she had to rush it out.

Ron sighed. He hated this shit, with the questions. She always made him do this—made him ask her questions about their life to confirm it was really her. She was so fucking paranoid, it made it hard to be with her. She had a fucking  _ gun  _ under her pillow, and she hadn’t told him about it until he accidentally found it and freaked out.

Ron was about to start yelling at Kim when he noticed something, her jaw clicked, her teeth ground together and her head tilted back like she was eating jerky. It was weird. Like, she was… fighting something.

“It’s okay, no question,” she grunted and came in, shutting the door behind her. That’s also not like her at all. Kim is stubborn.

Ron backed away. “No, let’s… let’s do it.”

Kim growled. “You already let me in.”

Ron had  _ no  _ idea what the fuck she was on but quite frankly he was ready to divorce her right then and there. “The night we first danced—what color dress were you wearing?”

Kim blinked. And then took a step forward.

Ron screamed. It all happened so fast. She moved at him, pulled a freakin’  _ machete _ on him and swung it at his face. He leaped backwards and just dodged and dodged and dodged, as she tried to cut away at him. If it was really Kim, he’d have been cut to ribbons. But whoever this really was, or whoever was puppeting her, they weren’t good. Not at hand-to-hand. 

Or maybe they were good, and Kim was fighting back. 

Even untrained, Ron could knock her out with his powers, but he was scared of hurting her. Scared of accidentally killing her. The very last of his powers flared inside him as she backed him up towards the wall in their bedroom. He looked away and didn’t have a choice. 

She screamed, howled in agony as a mist of blue entered her mouth and spread through her skull and zapped the shit out of it. He tried his best to keep it non-lethal but that’s so hard to control, and she collapsed to the floor, completely limp, body crashing into a desk that snapped under her. 

She laid in a pile of glass, bloodied. Ron grabbed the gun from under Kim’s pillow and climbed over her, pointing the barrel at her chin, waiting for her to wake up and bullshit him one more time.

She coughed. Ron’s trigger finger tightened and tears came from his eyes. Please be over, please be over.

Kim’s eyes opened and her pupils had shrunken into little dots. She looked so sick. “G-green, dress was green!”

A desperate bid to trick him. Last ditch from the devil. The dress was powder blue. She would know that. 

On instinct, Ron’s finger tightened even more but then he noticed something—the way her breath hitched, the way her eyes didn’t focus on him as she said it. 

Kim was lying. She knew the dress was blue. She just faked an answer to get him to...

“Kim?” Ron whimpered, and dropped the gun. Kim choked down a sob.“Kim, oh my God.”

Kim burst into tears, lying there in the glass. It took Ron way too long to work up the nerve to pick her up and support her by the back.

“Please kill me,” her voice had gotten so tiny and small, he had never seen her like this. She folded underneath him, hyperventilating “Please…”

“Kim, it’s okay,” Ron whispered into her ear. “You’re okay, it’s okay, everyone’s okay, and—”

“No, that’s not true, Ron,” Kim pulled back and fought so hard to look him in the eye. Her complexion was crinkled by her agony. Her eyes bulged out of her head like a bug. Her teeth chattered and her voice was high and sharp. “I killed so many people, he made me kill so many people…”

One week ago to the day, Doctor Drakken took over Kim’s body and controlled almost every one of her actions. He had to have planned this for years for this to work. He knew everything about her life, and everyone she loved.

She killed Wade during a game of chess.

Yori got mutilated in her sleep.

Bonnie got sniped and thrown into a lake.

Ron didn’t want to hear anymore, but he needed to know. He asked her to skip the details and she understood. 

Monique. Her partner at work, Will Du. Ron wasn’t even supposed to be the last target. 

“It’s not your fault,” Ron tried to convince Kim, but he knew it wouldn’t help her. “Please don’t go back out there.”

Kim couldn’t speak anymore. Her voice gave out, it happened sometimes when she was having an attack. He got her some meds and cuddled with her, eventually lulling her to sleep. Then he stayed awake for hours to make sure she was okay. 

But Kim still went back to work. She had to call it in. But then she went to work again. And again.

They had a big fight over it that ended with her breaking down in his arms. This wasn’t like her, or, she before then, that wasn’t like her. That day forward that became her normal. She fluctuated from stone cold killer to nervous wreck. 

Ron held her for so long that night and cradled her to and fro. “Something’s wrong, Kim. Please tell me what’s wrong. I can’t help you if—”

She told him:

> “They’re going to frame me. Betty will destroy us if I leave.”

He squeezed her so tight and she had to ask him to loosen up. He apologized, and said:

> “Let’s fucking go then. Let’s run away. Make new identities.”

Kim lost her ability to speak again, she was so nervous. She tried signing to him, but it didn’t work because her arms were shaking like harp strings. She had to take a minute to try again and then that time it came through:

> _ They’ll find us. I need time. Let me think. I’ll protect us. _

Ron listened. What else could he have done? At least he got her into therap from all that, not that it fucking mattered, she died anyways because of those motherfuckers.

* * *

“Mister Mister!” Kimmie pushes through the crowd. It’s easy for her to slip between people’s legs and she jumps in the way of Ron Stoppable and his entourage. They’re all big tall men in suits, they don’t wear sunglasses but Kimmie remembers them having sunglasses later.

Ron raises an eyebrow and the scary entourage move towards Kimmie to shoo her away. She’s so used to big dumb grownups tryna scare her, and she ain’t scared of them.

“No, I wanna talk to Ron!” Kimmie yells, throwing her fists at her hips. She hopes he doesn’t think she’s gross, dressed in rags and covered in dirt and grime.

Ron slams through the entourage, maybe a little too recklessly, and winks at Kimmie. “One second, buddy—” he looks back to the entourage. “Cool it, guys. I know you Global Justice people are always  _ on  _ but this boy is like five years old, okay?” 

Ron stoops down to her level and is still so much taller than her. She immediately feels really shy. He’s very cute. It makes her forget he called her a boy.

“I’m not five!” she whispers. “I’m nine years old.”

Ron blinks. “Really? Dang, okay, shrimp. Talk to me, what’s up?”

Kimmie giggles.  _ Shrimp. _ He’s funny.  _ And  _ he’s nice to her. She opens her mouth and then feels her stomach grumble. “Can you buy me food? I’m really hungry.”

Ron stares at her and looks to his entourage nervously. “Um, are your parents around?”

“No,” Kimmie shakes her head. “My m-mommy and d-d-daddy don’t like me very much… please mister?”

Ron groans and then shrugs playfully. “Honestly? Why the heck not, sure kiddo. Kim would want me to.”

!!!!

He mentioned Kim!!! This is so exciting.

* * *

Kimmie drools at the diner Ron brings her to. She keeps climbing up in the booth to look over the barrier to see everyone else’s food. Everyone’s meals are so  _ big.  _ But Ron keeps pulling her down, telling her people don’t like to get stared at. 

Ron is really nice to her. He takes her into the boys’ bathroom (he doesn’t know she’s a girl yet, it’s okay, she’ll tell him soon) to clean her face and stuff. She should be doing detective work but she really wishes he would clean her face and stuff forever.

She gets kinda nervous when it’s time to order because she doesn’t want to admit that she doesn’t know how to read. Even though kids her age are supposed to. It’s really overwhelming being here, she’s scared someone might yell at her for being dumb.

“Mister Stoppable? Can you help me?” she asks, and when he nods she ducks under the table and pops up besides him in the booth, nestling in close. “I can’t… um, read. And I was hopin’ you could help me pick something.”

“You can’t… read? Are you sure you’re nine years old?”

“Um. Yeah, I’m—um—homeless. I don’t go to school and…”

“Right, you’re homeless…” Ron frowns. “I kinda wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Nooooo, I’m hungry. Help me pick food.”

“Don’t worry, kiddo, the Ron-man has good taste. Hey, why don’t you go back to your seat—”

“I wanna sit with you,” she whines, nestling in even closer, his arm falling over her. “I don’t have any friends.”

“—you don’t?”

“Nobody likes me.”

They sit in silence for a little bit and she nuzzles against him like a kitty cat. He seems sort of uncomfortable at first but after a while he runs a hand through her hair. She wants to stay there forever. It’s the happiest moment of her life so far.

Ron orders her something called chicken fingers and fries. Sound gross, but she’s sure it’s really good. Ron’s really smart so she trusts him.

“So why did you pick me out of all people?” Ron asks, looking down at Kimmie. “I’m worried about you, buddy.”

“Oh, don’t worry I’m really good at taking care of myself, um, I wanted to talk to you because… because, I just learned about Kim Possible the other day and um… m-my name is… um…”

She squeezes her eyes tight. Is he going to get mad if she tells him? 

Doesn’t matter, she doesn’t have any other names. She doesn’t remember what her parents used to call her.

“My name is Kim Possible too,” she breathes out. “I picked it for myself before I even knew about her. She’s my hero now.”

Ron doesn’t react for some time. Maybe he pales a little bit. Kimmie just kinda stares at him and watches all of his facial tics as he figures out what to even say to that. “Alright, this has got to be some kind of joke.”

Kimmie gapes. “Huh? Noooo, no, it’s m-my name I pr-promise.”

Ron bites his lip and it looks like he might cry. “I’m sorry, Kim would want me to help you. She really liked it when little girls said they looked up to—wait, oh no, did I misgender you?”

Kimmie tilts her head to the side.

“Um, it means like, I kept referring to you as a boy, but you’re a girl.”

“Yup!” she bounces in place. “I’m gonna be really pretty like Kim one day too. You can call me Kimmie.”

His hand falls on her back and he rubs it for a little bit. “Kid, I think I’m going to need to drive you to a shelter after this. I’m really not the best person to help you, and you don’t seem very healthy, and—”

Kimmie doesn’t want to talk about that, the shelter is scary, people bully her there. 

“Kim Possible isn’t dead!” she blurts out, and covers her mouth fast.

“—I can’t just sit here and—wait what?”

She doesn’t notice his hand trembling, knuckles going white, eyes going red. 

“Well they didn’t find a body, silly,” Kimmie swishes her head around playfully. “ _ Everyone knows  _ if there’s no body then they’re not dead, and I’m gonna find her. I’m a detective and—”

“ **Enough** .”

Ron’s voice is cold as it is outside and suddenly Kimmie’s not sure she likes him that much anymore. 

Ron picks her up so easily and sets her back across him. “Whoever put you up to this, it’s not funny. Kim is gone. A-and I’m s-s-sick of people messing with me.”

Ron gets sad and stutters just like her…

“Kimmie, whatever your name is, I’m really disappointed in you. We’re going to eat, and then I’m taking you to a shelter. If you’re even homeless.”

“But… but… I’m—” her eyes are welling up. She thought she could trust this person, she was so confident but he’s just like the rest of them. He’s mean and a bully. 

She needs to make a move. She won’t let him take her away!

She ducks under the table. She may be little, and weak, but she knows how to run really fast. It’s how she’s gotten this far.

She pushes really hard to open the door and hits the streets, and doesn’t stop until she finds a dumpster in an alleyway to hide behind. She collapses, wheezing and out of breath, and then she starts crying because she’s alone again. 

She didn’t even get to eat. 

* * *

Kimmie doesn’t know how long it takes, but a little while later someone knocks on the dumpster and it is loud and scary. She peeks around and sees Ron looking back at her. She hides and covers her head. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you, Kimmie, it sounds like—it sounds like a lot of people have hurt you really badly,” Ron’s voice is so soft, and it kinda sounds like a lullaby. She wants him to be her best friend, she doesn’t have nobody else. “Um. I um… I’m sorry for flipping out at you. That was totally inappropriate.”

Kimmie takes a peek at him and shrinks away again. He’s so much bigger than her. 

“I really loved her,” Ron bites down a sob. “I loved her so much, you have no idea, kid. I… I saw her the night before. We had this really horrible fight, and—I wish what you were telling me is true.”

Kimmie crawls out from behind the dumpster, and sees Ron sitting with his legs splayed out. There’s a styrofoam container on his lap. She wonders what’s in it, but first she crawls into Ron’s lap and hugs him tight. “I’m gonna find her for you, okay? I’m sure she loves you too, you’re really nice.”

He touches her back, gently setting her besides him. “Listen, Kimmie, will you let me take you to a shelter?”

She shakes her head. “People always bully me for being small, a-and for being a girl. I’ve been to so many shelters and they’re always so mean to me, I don’t wanna.”

Ron frowns, and it makes Kimmie sad to hurt someone’s feelings. But she doesn’t want to get hurt no more. 

He says, “I’m not going to put you into a bad situation, okay?”

Ron touches her cheek and she flinches at first, then lets him do it. His touch is soft and tender. 

“You seriously remind me so much of her. You have her eyes, her hair, even the same skin tone. I, um, I’ve known Kim since I was five and you look so much like her at that age.”

“B-b-but I’m nine…”

“I know, sweetheart, I understand,” he makes a face. “Are you small because you don’t eat a lot?”

She nods her head. “My imaginary friend keeps remindin’ me to eat so I can grow up like normal kids.”

Ron looks so emotional and she doesn’t understand why. Is she making him sad?

He changes topics. “Hey look, I got you a present.” He pops the tray open and it’s… 

Kimmie gets so excited, she squeals and kicks at the air. 

It’s the food she ordered and wow—it’s so much FOOD!!!!!!! Her mouth waters. Her eyes too, she’s never seen so much food in her life. Maybe to everyone else it’s just five chicken fingers and a stack of fries with a little salad but… she can’t speak at all. This happens to her sometimes, either when she’s really sad or really happy. Usually the former.

Kimmie looks to Ron, blinking in amazement and points at the food.

Ron blinks back more tears for some reason and chuckles, mussing her hair just like her imaginary friend does. “It’s all yours, Kimmie.”

Then something really strange happens. She jumps into Ron’s lap and hugs him so tight, leans back, and starts using sign language. “ _ Thank you. I love you, you’re my best friend. _ ” It’s clumsy and hard to follow, but it’s sign language.

“Wait,” Ron blinks. 

**Click.**

“You… can’t read, but you know sign language?”

Kimmie frowns. “ _ Am I in trouble? _ ”

“No, just… Kim knew sign language too. She had to for her anxiety.”

Kimmie’s eyes widen. “ _ I’m really happy I get to be like Kim. _ ”

“You really like her a lot, huh?” Ron sighs. “Listen, I—I can’t be your best friend though.”

She pulls back, voice returning. “Wh-why? Noo…”

“I’m sorry but I got a life I gotta get back to. I live really far away from here, but um, I’d be willing to take you in for a little bit, like a foster dad, until we find you a better home—”

“No.”

Kimmie has never felt more sure about something in her life. “I’m staying here. I need to find Kim.”

Ron sighs. “You’re stubborn like her too. Listen, I’m seriously worried about you. You shouldn’t be living on the street. You deserve to be loved, God, I always had to tell Kim that. The uh, other Kim. You need to be safe, please. At least stay in contact with me. Do you know what email is, honey?”

She nods. “I can’t read though.”

“We’re changing that, will you let me get you enrolled in kindergarten?”

Kimmie shrinks back. “B-but I’m too old…”

“It’s okay, you’re so little,” he speaks so softly and she kinda flops over in his lap. “No one’ll know, just pretend to be five, you’ll fit in I promise.”

“Is it okay if I go as a girl?” Kimmie asks, cheeks red. “It always gets me into trouble but I don’t like pretendin’. I don’t remember what my old name even was…”

“Of course you can, you’re already a girl, don’t let anyone tell you different.”

Kimmie smiles. 

“Once you learn how to read, we can email each other. I can even write you a little guidebook on how to use email and make an account for you and everything.”

Kimmie feels so overwhelmed. Her life is changing rapidly in so many good ways. She squeezes the rags on her and chokes down a sob. “M-Mister St-st-st-stoppable?”

He rubs her back and tells her it’s going to be okay. She keeps on crying. Somebody cares about her. Somebody wants her to be safe. He’s going to look out for her and be her best friend. She sniffles and looks at her feet. 

“You can bring me to a shelter if you want to,” she says in a tiny voice. “I wanna use a computer to write letters to you and stuff.”

“That’s great news, Kimmie,” Ron leans back, balancing the tiny girl on his legs, and puts the styrofoam tray in her lap. “Come on, eat up. Let’s take it easy for a bit.”

* * *

The rest of the day is so fun!!! Not only does Kimmie get to eat good food, she gets to eat  _ a lot  _ of good food. Mister Stoppable keeps spoiling her and buying her everything she sees. She’s never eaten so much in her life, and it’s all warm! She never gets warm food, and it’s all so much. She has to stop at one point or she might explode. 

The big thing they do is clothes shopping. They walk through a big store together, and he carries her when she gets tired. She’s sort of nervous, because she’s stolen a few things from here but he assures her that she’ll be okay, that he’ll protect her, and she hugs him tighter. She really doesn’t want him to go away. She loves him so much.

She gets to wear her first dress which is fun. She looks so pretty. It’s breezy too, she feels so free like this. He buys her nice jammies too that are really soft.

Ron’s rental car is full of junk by the time they’re through; she would know, she has to sit in the backseat in a booster seat. But that’s okay! She likes looking out the window. She’s been on buses before, but never a car. She likes the safety belt, it makes her feel like no one can ever hurt her. It’s really overwhelming. She gets so tired that he lets her sleep on a real bed in his hotel room. It’s so fluffy and big. 

And warm. That’s not even the best part though. “Hey,” Ron whispers and her eyes open a crack. She yawns and he grins. “I have a present for you.”

“You’ve given me too many presents, Unca Ronnie,” she says, trying out yet another nickname for this wonderful man.

Ron shrugs and pulls something out and her eyes light up. It’s a stuffed animal, that’s like, um, a panda and a kangaroo. It’s really cute and it feels familiar in her arms. She brings it to her chest and it’s so big. “What’s his name?”

“Pandaroo, Kimmie, his name is Pandaroo. He was… um, Kim’s favorite. He helped her out a lot when she was a grown-up. I was gonna leave it at her grave, I think she might still need him, but uh, that’s corny, I think you should have him. That makes both of you happier.”

Kimmie sniffs. “I’ll keep him safe.”

“Okay, go back to sleep,” he whispers.

* * *

Kimmie wakes up to shouting and it’s scary. She shrinks underneath the blanket before poking her head out.

Ron is screaming his lungs out at the eye patch lady from earlier. That lady’s boring, Kimmie hides some more, she doesn’t want to get caught listening in, but she needs to hear so she can protect Ron if anything bad happens.

“Stoppable, cool it,” eye patch lady sneers. “God, I’m fucking glad Possible divorced your sorry ass, you always blow up at the dumbest shit—”

“WHAT?!” Ron’s voice cracks and he’s almost breathing fire like a dragon. He’s so angry, way angrier than he was with her earlier. “How fucking dare you say that shit to me. Am I  _ happy _ about what I did when I stopped her from killing Drakken. Yeah I fucking am! It was twenty years ago, leave me alone.”

Eyepatch crosses her arms. “I was just asking. Seeing how Drakken killed your  _ ex- _ wife the other day, which was completely avoidable. Hoped you would learn but no, you want to be a  _ baby _ about it.”

Kimmie can’t take it anymore. She leaps out of bed, holding Pandaroo so tightly and marches right up to the eye patch lady. “Leave Ronnie alone, he’s my friend.”

“Kimmie,” Ron urges between gritted teeth.

“ _ Kimmie? _ What, is this some kind of fangirl?” eye patch lady drops down to Kimmie’s level. “Wanna work for Global Justice? Kim saved the world with them.”

Ron screams bloody murder and his leg knocks her over as he rushes forward. It makes her teary eyed but she knows it was on accident.

Ron gets so mad he pulls eye patch lady off the floor, dangles her one foot in the air, and slams her into the wall. 

“Just a joke,” eye patch lady shrugs.

“A joke is supposed to be funny, you monster. You got Kim killed, you’re the one who knew she wasn’t okay and kept making her go out there. You stay away from me, you stay away from anything related to Kim Possible or I will fucking destroy you.” He throws her out of the hotel room and slams the door. 

Kimmie sits in silence as Ron breaks down, hands going to his face as his whole body jerks with his tears. “I’m sorry, Kimmie. You shouldn’t have seen that.”

She touches his shoulder. She’s gonna make him get all better. “I get mad too sometimes, wanna hold Pandaroo?”

“No, it’s okay,” he flops face first into the bed, so she jumps up to stay with him, and pats his back like he did for her earlier. “Kimmie, can we talk?”

“Yes,” she grins.

“Okay,” he gets up and looks at her very seriously with dark eyes. This is important. She tries really hard to pay attention and to not get distracted.

“Kimmie, I want you to listen to me. This is adult stuff, it’s really complicated. My Kim, she pushed herself too hard, okay? She forgot to love herself, and it really messed her up. She kept training and training and training because that lady with the eye patch told her to, all to protect other people and she burnt out, and then her mom and dad died and that’s when—”

Kimmie feels confused, because she thinks she just found more evidence.

“Can you please say that again, Mr. Stoppable?”

**Click.**

Ron raises an eyebrow. “What, that her mom and dad died?”

Kimmie nods. She remembers being confused whether or not her parents died or if they abandoned her. She doesn’t actually know, she picked the worse one because she’s sad. Maybe her parents died too. “Did Kim have brothers?”

“Two little brothers, yeah.”

Kimmie’s eyes get so wide. Two little brothers. She had… two big brothers…? She bites her lip and nods for Ron to keep going.

Ron continues, “My Kim gave up on herself and told me she wasn’t worth being with anymore, and I didn’t know what to do so I… I don’t want you to get hurt trying to be as good as Kim. Please.”


	4. stop pretending, there is no way you could be me, i could never be this kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kim tries to prove to Kimmie that she's a horrible human being, and Kimmie won't believe her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is not mobile friendly. it's also best viewed on the vanilla ao3 with the white background. you don't need to change your settings if you don't feel like it though.
> 
> i'm really proud of this chapter. i cried so many times writing it.

Kim is livid. One year. One fucking _year_ of advocating for these people, swearing to the literal court that the Lowardian invasion only stopped because of their work. She trusted them so much, she gave them everything she had. Only for them to stab her in the back. She trusted them, yet Drakken and Shego still left her in the dust. S

he tries to get up, Ron holding her back by the chest, which is _heaving_ in her rage. Drakken’s getting away, about to jump into a helicopter and ride off. 

“LET ME THE FUCK GO RON!” Kim screams, elbowing him in the gut.

Ron yelps and then tackles her, holding her down with his powers. “Kim, please. Calm down, it’s okay, we’ll get them next time.”

“No, we’re getting them NOW,” she hisses, voice going low and guttural. She claws at the air. “They’re going to kill people, Ron, if we don’t. PLEASE.”

“Kim, you—you can’t make it, I’m sorry, you’re bleeding—”

Who cares she’s bleeding.

“—you’re not thinking straight—”

She never is.

“—and we’re outnumbered. You go out there and they’ll—”

Kim kicks Ron _hard_ and knocks him over, sprinting away and leaping through a fucking window. She falls far and _slams_ full body into a rooftop. Hurts like Hell. Probably broke something. She can see snipers on the rooftops around her readjusting their aim.

“Wade, where the fuck is he,” Kim spits.

“ _Kim, I don’t feel comfortable_ —”

“You want me to die?!”

“ _No_ …”

“THEN FUCKING—”

“ _Okay, I get it!_ ”

Kim runs and with Wade’s guidance leaps over rooftops. Ron takes to the skies with his powers and blasts the snipers away, throwing up shields around Kim to block her from bullets. She hardly acknowledges it, she’s only seeing red and she might die of exhaustion. Her legs snap her forward with agility that scares her. But she runs and jumps and climbs and she catches up with the fucking bastard. She sees Drakken at a helipad, climbing onto a rope ladder. He looks back to her, blows a kiss, and takes to the air.

She failed.

Wait.

No.

Ha ha. 

“Kim, I know what you’re thinking,” Ron screams from up above. “Don’t you dare—”

Kim blocks him out, runs, leaps onto the helipad, and sprints across the length of it, helicopter blowing her back. So she just runs faster. She screams and leaps into the fucking air and slams into Drakken on his stupid rope ladder. 

She loves watching this piece of shit squeal. _That’s impossible_ , he probably shouts.

Kim bodychecks him out of the air and they fall together. Ten story drop. She pulls a grapple and swings to safety, the two of them rolling against the pebble covered rooftop to a local market way down below. He takes the fall much harder than her though. She grabs him by the labcoat and pulls him upward, teeth grit so hard they might break.

“You… you…” she can’t even find the words to describe this _monster._

She reaches into her jacket and fishes around until she finds it—there, a revolver. Not even Ron knows she’s packin’ today. She had to get a license to shoot after Lowardia, and felt bad telling Ron because he doesn’t need one with his magic powers and all.

She presses the gun into Drakken’s forehead and he winces, waiting for her to do it. 

But she never gets to kill Drakken. Ron warps behind her and tackles her to the ground, knocking the gun out of her hands, and—she punches him and punches him and punches him and it doesn’t hurt him. He wastes so much precious magic that day over her. 

It ends with her crying in his arms; Drakken escaped during Kim and Ron’s fight. 

“Why didn’t you let me kill him, Ron?” Kim’s lips were wet and her body limp. 

“Because Kim,” Ron whispers. “I—” Suddenly his eyes bulge and his teeth gnash. He screams in her face, rising up and pushing her with him. “—LET HIM FUCKING LIVE BECAUSE IT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO YOU CONNIVING SOCIOPATH!”

“Ron,” Kim whimpers, eyes wade. She flinches. Then she falls backwards and she’s standing between him and Dr. Director in Betty’s office a few hours later.

“Oh, _I_ am the sociopath?” Betty crosses her arms. “Do you know how many people he killed today because of you two morons? _Eleven_. At least Possible was trying to do the—”

Kim gets angry and turns on Betty, trying to be Ron’s shield. “—I was frothing at the mouth. I would have done the same thing to Ron. I am _not_ proud of my actions, and it disgusts me that you could even _think_ of saying—”

“You little fool,” Betty growls and sits back on her desk, watching them like this is _so_ amusing to her. “Do you not see what he’s done to you?”

Kim loses all of her steam. “What?”

“He’s manipulating you,” Betty shrugs. “Gaslighting the shit out of you, he’s the fuckup not you—”

Kim jumps and Ron has to pull her back. She spits and hisses. Ron just wants to get them out of the room.

“I _am_ a sociopath by the way, Stoppable. I’ve been diagnosed. Here’s the deal,” Betty cocks her head to the side, acting as if Kim isn’t losing her fucking mind in front of her. “Either you two break-up or one of you gets fired. Now get the fuck out of my office. There’s an assignment I need you two on immediately. Find Will.”

Kim wants to kill Betty, she really does. She moves forward, the rug slipping out from under her. Everything starts to shift again when—

“No,” little Kimmie dives into Kim’s waist, hands wrapped around her hips. “No more. Please stop, you’re hurting yourself.”

Everything goes black around the two of them and Kim falls to her knees, throwing her arms around Kimmie, shoulders bobbing up and down as she struggles to keep it together. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry…”

“Kim, do you want to be a little girl with me?” Kimmie asks. 

Kim nods and shrinks again until she’s an exact duplicate of Kimmie. “I hate myself…” 

Her high voice makes it hurt even more. 

“No Kim, no, you’re good,” Kimmie rubs her friend’s back. “I know you were kinda scary there but um, it’s okay. See? You’re little with me now, and Ron really likes us.”

“He likes you,” Kim sniffles, she hates how much she cries as a little girl. She hates how sensitive and weak she is, how at the drop of a hat she just falls into a complete mental breakdown. “He hates me he hates me he hates me!”

“Nooo,” Kimmie tries her best to comfort Kim but it’s just not working. “A bad person wouldn’t say any of these things.”

“WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW?!” Kim screams in a tantrum and slips away, backing away so fast. “You’re just a little… kid! A-a-a-a-and… I’m… I’m…” She falls on her knee, growing into a twenty year old. She punches the ground and bows so low, snivelling. “...throwing a tantrum, I’m supposed to be the adult.”

“You aren’t an adult, Kim. You’re nine years old, it doesn’t matter how big you get, you’re me. Please. Be little with me. Let’s play.”

Kim shakes her head and gets up, wiping the tears from her cheeks aggressively, teeth gnashing. “I’m going to show you how bad I am, and then I want you to stay away from me, okay?!”

The abyss becomes a big movie screen. Kim snaps her fingers and it rolls through a montage of Kim getting fired after she and Ron both quit Global Justice the second they left her office that day.

She screams at someone at her organizing job about something she probably has a right to scream about.

She punches a womanizer at her secretary job and draws blood.

She calls a customer at her barista job a motherfucker.

She shows up late for the fifth time in a row to her sandwich artist job.

Kim doesn’t have the heart to show Kimmie what it was like when she had to tell Ron each and every time he was going to need to do double shifts so they could pay rent. Technically, Kimmie isn’t smart enough to understand all this but she’s pretty sure she doesn’t exist. 

Kim sees herself as the self-destructive part of Kimmie’s brain that needs to be eradicated before it can hurt her. For Kimmie to ever be happy, Kim needs to die. She left too much of herself behind. But it’s all pointless. Kimmie can’t retain any of this, nothing that happens here affects anything. She knows she’s just spiralling into madness, even in death.

The movie screen vanishes and Kim and Ron’s old apartment comes in from below. Kim takes a seat at the kitchen table, eying Ron with bags under her eyes. She says, “I’m sorry… I’m worthless.”

“No, Kim, you’re not…” Ron comes around the table and slides into the same chair as her. “...I think you need to go on disability. I don’t think you can handle a job right now.”

Kim wipes some tears away and shakes her head. “Ron, I, um, already applied. They don’t consider what I have enough, and even then, the money would be so bad… a-and if we d-d-don’t… if we don’t…”

“Kim you don’t have to be scared of me,” Ron whispers.

“Huh?” Kim looks up. “Wh-wh-wh-what d-d-d-did I…”

“You’re flinching when I get near you, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m really sorry this is all happening to you.”

Kimmie climbs up into Kim’s lap and hugs her tight while the scene keeps playing. 

“I’m sorry, I’m… so fucking scared, Ron. We’re going to get evicted. We can’t make rent next month, even if you… you’re hurting yourself with all these shifts, I know you passed out last week while working the register at Bueno Nacho.”

She waits a second and Ron looks away pretty shamefully.

Kim touches his cheek. “It’s okay, I keep stuff from you too. Um, I haven’t told you for about two months because I’m really scared, but I lied about your insurance covering Rufus’ vet bills. And um… I’m really sorry, he was worth it though, right? He can be with us for at least another year...”

“Kim,” Ron holds her. “How much?”

“Two thousand, I had to, um, set up a plan. Monthly installments and um, with that… yeah.”

Kim runs her hand through Kimmie’s hair. “And this is my fault, which is why I’ve come to a decision.”

Ron looks up, ready for anything.

Kim takes in a deep breath. “The problem is, I can’t do any jobs but the stuff we did as kids. It’s all I know and I’m good at it. But Betty blacklisted me. I can’t work for anyone else but her.” 

And then Kim doesn’t say anything else.

It takes Ron ten seconds to realize what she just said. “Kim, you didn’t…”

“I’m sorry,” she looks away, hand curling around her mouth. “Betty said they will pay for everything. For the apartment this year, for Rufus, and so much more. I… I promise Ron, when it’s enough I’ll leave,” and she looks to Kimmie. 

“And I lied to him right there. The money stuff is true, Kimmie, but I knew I would never leave. I wanted to get hurt. I wanted to die on a mission. I wanted...”

Kimmie climbs up on Kim’s legs and stares down at her, pretty upset. “I’m mad at you, Kim.”

“You should be,” she sighs as the scene melts away, back to the abyss. “Do you see what you become when you idolize me?”

Kimmie’s eyes water. “I don’t wanna watch you beat yourself up anymore.” And then she waves her hand in the air and it’s like a gutpunch. Everything goes in reverse. “I’m going to make you forget all of this ever happened to you.”

.eimmiKotskoolehsdna”,evaelll’Ihguones’tineh,noResimorpII.eromhcumosdna,su **fuRrof,raeysihttnemtrapaehtroF.gnihtyreverofyapotgnioger’yehT“.htuomrehdnuoragnilrucdnah,yawaskoolehs”,yrrosm’I“”t’ndiduoy,miK“.diastsujehstahwezilaerosdnocesnetnoRsekattI.eslegnihtynayast’nseodmiKnehtdnA”.rehtubesleenoynarofkrowt’nacI.emd**

Kim looks to Kimmie. “What are you—” Her heart races, this is exactly how it felt the first time she lost her memories. No no no no no no no… “Please don’t take them away. I need them!” 

She screams so loud it scratches her throat. 

Kimmie shuts her eyes. “Sorry Kim. I love you okay?”

Kim falls onto her hands and knees, panting and collapsing, hyperventilating. Little Kimmie rushes to her and supports her by the back. “Sh, sh, sh… you’re okay, alright?”

Kim’s eyes are dry, but surrounded by circles of tears. She lays back down, holding Kimmie’s hand. “Is it ok if I be a little girl with you?”

“Always, Kim,” Kimmie coos. 

Kim shuts her eyes and shrinks, laying there. Kimmie puts her hand under her and hugs her some more. She’s so warm. It feels really nice to be held like this, Kim just wishes she could do the same for her.

“It’s okay, you’ll be okay,” Kimmie whispers. 

Kim reaches out for her little hand and takes it, tears in her eyes. “I don’t ‘member any of that stuff now, Kimmie.” She feels so small, even to the little girl. “I d-d-don’t kn-kn-know…knooo-o-o-o-o-ow… mmm.” She pulls back and signs. 

“ _I used to run those through my head so much and now they’re gone forever. I…_ ” she gets nervous and hesitates. “ _I’m sorry I have to sign so much. I’m sorry I’m so scared and_ —”

“Kim,” Kimmie whispers. “I love you, ‘member? You don’t need to apologize for being scared, I’m scared all the time too.”

Kimmie suddenly nuzzles against her, which makes Kim giggle.

There’s a long silence and it’s just the two girls in the void together. 

Kim looks up at Kimmie, beautiful wonderful Kimmie, and touches her cheek, signing slowly. “ _Why are you so nice to me_?”

“ _Because you’re my best friend too, and I don’t want you to keep hurting yourself with that stuff_ ,” Kimmie’s signing is really good. Kim rolls over in Kimmie’s lap and scrunches inwards where she can’t see Kimmie’s hands. “Remember, Kim? We said we were gonna protect each other.”

Kim puts her hands on top of the back of her head and signs. “ _You’re going to go mad taking care of me. Ron did too, and you’re only nine_ —”

“You’re nine years old too, Kim,” Kimmie says. “We’re both little girls, no matter how much you want to pretend. I know you hate it but—”

“Kimmie?” Kim gets up, legs splayed out, and her cheeks glow red. “This is all confusing and stuff. But I feel really happy sometimes. I dunno if I deserve it, but I kinda like being a little kid.”

Kim doesn’t really know what’s going on. It’s not like she’s an outside observer, or an active participant. She just kind of _is_ Kimmie. And she’s just what she’d be doing if she were in those circumstances. She feels so guilty about it though, because she can’t… when she’s awake she doesn’t know any of this stuff. 

Kimme’s kind of the same way. They haven’t talked about it. But Kimmie hasn’t lived on the streets for four years, she has no memories of it. But like, she _feels it_. She knows the devastation of it. 

She’ll never figure it out. Just like how Kim will never be able to tell Ron it’s her. But that’s fine. 

She’s just a little girl. As serious and traumatized as she is, Kim is only nine years old, no matter how much she tries to deny it.

“I should stop making myself look like a grown up, huh?” she asks, teary eyed. “It’s really hard pretendin’ to be old. I know I’ve been a grown up before, b-b-but I’m r-really… sc-scared of growing up again.”

“You can cry, you don’t have to feel weird about it.”

“Thanks,” she squeaks. “The kids are gonna pick on us so much because we’re trans.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Um, it means that we’re a girl, but we were assigned being somethin’ else at birth… I’ve never been trans before and it’s making me really nervous. I don’t wanna pretend to be five like Ron said either. That’s not fair.”

Kimmie frowns. “I don’t wanna be five either, it’s not our fault we’re little.”

“Yeah,” Kim echoes glumly. “I think though… that um… when we go to the shelter, they’ll feed us okay and we’ll get to be like the other kids.”

“You think so?!” Kimmie nearly screams. 

“Yeah, I know so,” Kim smiles, pinching Kimmie’s cute cheek. “I’m scared about learning to read again. I’m worried I won’t get my letters right. But we’re gonna be really smart. You’re really smart because you’ve survived this long, Kimmie.”

Kimmie didn’t actually live on the streets for very long, but she is someone who knows how to do it because of how she came into being, and she was the part of them who knew what to do before they found Ron.

Kimmie gets so bashful. Kim giggles and tickle attacks her and they roll around and it’s soooo fuuuun. When they’re on the ground, laying besides each other, both wheezing from all the laughing’, Kimmie looks to Kim.

“What was your favorite part about today?” She bumps her head against Kim’s little shoulder. “I really liked the chicken fingers, ooh, and the bed.”

“I liked the bed too,” Kim admits. Her cheeks get really red now. “I liked holding Pandaroo again.”

Kimmie giggles. “I could tell. He made you feel sooooo saaaaafe.”

Kim blushes some more. Her big sister is always teasin’ her. She likes it though, she likes friendly jokes. 

It’s been so confusing being like this. Kim sees it as like… a spinning dart board. Where you need to hit a specific section on the outside. It’s all too fast and too close to understand, all you can do is throw. That’s childhood for her. 

As a woman, childhood was so short. But to a kid it’s ages. While Kimmie is a nine year old who sometimes acts like a six or seven year old, Kim is a nine year old who acts like a four year old, or even a big kid like an eleven year old. It changes every day. Today she feels like she’s just a hair younger than Kimmie, because she’s having a bad day. Maybe today she is five. 

But she had bad days as an adult too. She slept with Pandaroo on her anxious nights because it helped just a little bit, especially when she wasn’t with Ron. She doesn’t think that was childish at all. So maybe… maybe she just is Kimmie’s twin. Maybe it’s okay to be sick in the head and to like stuffed animals. 

But if that’s the case, she’s gonna play pretend and say Kimmie is her big sister for today, because it makes her feel loved. 

She fidgets a little bit. She knows she’ll relapse tomorrow on so many things. She’s too tired to talk for the rest of the day so she signs to Kimmie, “ _I wish I could have said sorry to Ron. If I could do just one thing, it would be that.”_

Kimmie gives a knowing look. “ _Do you want me to sign more often?”_

_“Yes. Talking makes me anxious.”_

_“Okay, Kim. Hm. Haven’t you been paying attention? Look at how happy Ron is. I don’t make him happy by myself, we both do. We’re the same person, okay?_ ”

Kim doesn’t believe her. She looks away.

“ _Okay_.”


	5. i almost hope he doesn't come back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ron says goodbye to Kimmie.

> I remember when your Mom died a few months after your Dad, you vanished for a week. I tried everything and couldn’t find you. I understood though. That was your breaking point. All you had left was me and I knew exactly what you were going to say when we finally saw each other. That we can’t be together anymore.
> 
> I visited the cemetery every night, because I knew eventually I’d find you. You’d go there before ever going home. And I understand, it’s seriously okay. 
> 
> You lied to me. 
> 
> For years you kept telling me the same shit, that you’re dead inside, that you can’t love anymore. That you feel nothing.
> 
> I saw you, Kim. I saw the way you held your mom’s tombstone like it was a real person, I tried not to hear the crying but your shoulder blades were moving like wings. Up and down. 
> 
> There is no one I have ever met in my life that was as emotional and caring as you. I almost wish I came out and told you I was there. But I was really scared that if I did, it would cause you to have another breakdown. 
> 
> I remember when you came home as if nothing happened, dressed in gray, and gave me the divorce papers. You told me that it wasn’t working anymore, because you weren’t good enough. Because you couldn’t feel love anymore, as much as you wanted to. That all you could do at this point was hurt me. 
> 
> And I said that shit to you. I said:
> 
> _KP, I’ll never stop saying I love you. But I’m not going to lie, it hurts when you don’t say it._
> 
> _Because I know you love me too._
> 
> You got mad, you screamed at me. But you weren’t actually mad, you were faking it. 
> 
> In hindsight, it’s sort of funny how often you lied to me, thinking you were getting away with it. I could always tell. You’re worse than me, you lie like a bad lawyer. 
> 
> You pulled out all the stops to convince me I had to do this with you, and at that point—I had to let you go. 
> 
> I really hope your death was peaceful, Kim. If you are dead.
> 
> There’s this kid, uh, kinda awkward, but she has your name. I thought she was part of some scary trafficking operation, so I spent a lot of time with her to keep her safe.
> 
> Kim, she is the nicest, sweetest person I’ve ever met. She’s just so excited about everything, and such a chatterbox. 
> 
> She’s really tiny. I thought she was a kindergartener but apparently she’s nine years old. She was wearing these disgusting rags and her face was covered in dirt. I don’t understand how she’s managed to survive for so long but… she’s trans by the way. She really admires you. She says she wants to grow up to be like you.
> 
> She says she doesn’t know her parents, she doesn’t know her dead name, and that she gets confused a lot. She can’t read… but she knows sign language. 
> 
> Fluently. 
> 
> I think she’s you, Kim. 
> 
> I think the person I’ve spent the past few days with is you.
> 
> (You like to be called Kimmie now by the way, thank God. Makes it easier on my head. I’m crying by the way.)
> 
> Seeing you as this wonderful child is both one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life, and maybe one of the most fucked up? I don’t know if Drakken did it, or some divine being did it, I know you’re not playing pretend. If it is Drakken, I don’t know, I might kill him. The shit he put in your head. I know you hated being a kid the first time because you didn’t like how out of control you felt. Now your brain has been rewired into making you think that nobody has ever loved you before. 
> 
> I scared her earlier. I thought she was making fun of you and I snapped, and she ran away and hid behind a dumpster and curled into a little ball. She was shaking when I saw her Kim, I think she thought I wanted to hurt her. And it kinda broke my heart. You did the same thing with me, you always thought I’d hurt you but… this is just who she is.
> 
> You’re so tiny now, Kim. I don’t know if this is permanent, if you’ll always be small and scrawny. Part of me hopes you do stay tiny and weak so you don’t ever do those missions again, but no one deserves this. You deserve everything. 
> 
> Kimmie deserves the world. I’m going to help somehow.
> 
> I’ll probably never know for sure, I’m happy for you. Because you get a second chance at life, at being happy. 
> 
> If it’s not you, it doesn’t really change anything. She still needs help. I wish you could meet her. Either as a mother, or as a mirror to see who you could be… this is so complicated.
> 
> I want to adopt her. I’ve only known her for two days and I want to be her dad, and I want you to be her mom, even in death, well fuck, what is this— _Steven Universe_? Being your mom? Yikes.
> 
> But I can’t. I need to move on for a little bit, my life has revolved around you forever and I need a break to fix my shit. 
> 
> (I kinda just spent several thousand dollars on this kid.)
> 
> (And I can’t pay rent now.)
> 
> (And I was late last month too.)
> 
> (And I know they want to evict me.)
> 
> (And I know I can’t bring her into that.)
> 
> Don’t blame yourself. Ha, I bet I’ll tell you though, the child you, she’ll blame herself too. I’m going to make sure she’s healthy, and gets everything she wants. Because you always turned that stuff down to protect people.
> 
> I am going to sign up as her emergency contact at least, so I can stay in touch. Once she learns how to read, we’ll talk more and maybe… I don’t know. We’ll see?
> 
> ~~I love you, Kim. My Kim. Other Kim? You’re okay.~~
> 
> ~~Rest well and if you really are that little girl, take it easy.~~
> 
> ~~\- Ron~~
> 
> I’m sorry I just can’t Kim. 
> 
> I’m so upset, this tears me up inside. You were always so alone in your feelings, and I see it in her. In you? 
> 
> You keep telling me about your imaginary friends who have to remind you that you need to eat to be like a ‘normal kid.’ You talk to yourself a lot, when we first met you nuzzled against me. You’ve been hurt so bad and you’re so fucking trusting. The first person that was nice to you, you just cozied up and felt safe. And then I betrayed that. 
> 
> You tell me things you think are okay but they really aren’t. You’re so positive and maybe it’s better you don’t know but I really don’t know what to do. 
> 
> Am I a bad fucking person for walking, Kim? Is it okay that I’m giving you to a shelter and hoping for the best? 
> 
> Honestly, before you died… I would’ve taken her and just let it be it. I wouldn’t even talk to you I’d just do it.
> 
> I can’t now. Because you died, and I’m looking at this little girl, and I’m seeing what you gave up ( _literally everything_ ) to help people. And I know I haven’t given as much as you, Kim. But I’m close to my own limit. I’m so fucking tired and…
> 
> Please forgive me. I promise I’m going to come back. I just need some space. 

* * *

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what Little Kimmie and Kim do in Kimime’s head at night. Kimmie still gets the nightmares, and she wakes up screaming in the gigantic bed, clutching to Pandaroo so tight. Ron, who was already awake, rushes over to her. 

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he asks.

Kimmie leaps into his arms and holds his chest, sobbing. She says a lot of stuff but nothing really comes out. She’s just making sounds, she doesn’t even know what she’s saying. She can’t even remember her dream, but it hurt. It hurt so badly. People were hurting her and they wouldn’t stop hurting and it’s not fair because she’s little and didn’t do anything wrong. 

She sobs and sobs and sobs, and it ends with Ron cradling her and eventually, singing a lullaby to her. 

Kimmie looks up at him and she still feels so scared, she’s shaking, and it’s been a half hour. “I-i-i-is th-th-th-this wh-wh-what my m-m-mommy w-would d-do i-i-f she d-didn’t d-die?”

Ron furrows his brow. “Didn’t you say she abandoned you?”

“I dunno,” Kimmie says. “I don’ ‘member anything I’m always confused… I’m s-s-s-sorry if I l-lied…”

**Click.**

“No, you didn’t lie, Kimmie, it’s okay,” Ron keeps on singing in her ear between sentences. “I know somebody really hurt you. I don’t know what they did but they made you think no one loves you, but I do, and a lot of other people will. And there are going to be people who can’t help but hold you when you’re scared.”

Kimmie sniffs and smiles to herself for a moment, and looks up. “Do you have nightmares like me?”

“Not like that, Kimmie,” he pets her hair. “Does that happen to you a lot?”

She nods meekly and falls back into the bed and looks at him steadily, and then brings up her hands.

“ _Am I always going to be like this? Will I always be small? Will I always have nightmares?_ ” She waits a second. “ _I’m scared about going to school. I know I’m not very smart and…_ ” She sees Ron crying. “ _Am I making you sad?_ ”

He nods and comes over to her, picking her up again. “I just don’t know what to tell you. Beyond that you’re special, Kimmie. And I know that, I’m leaving you really soon. But just because I’m gone it doesn’t mean no one will love you, okay?”

Kimmie doesn’t know if that’s true. But she hugs Ron by the ribs anyways. 

“And I don’t know if this will make sense but…” He chokes a sob, his eyes red and cracked. 

“You don’t deserve this. You’re a good person _._ ”

Kimmie’s mouth opens so wide and she feels funny. Because that doesn’t make sense to her at all, she doesn’t know what he’s talking about but… something inside her is crying happy tears. She knows this. She feels this. “I…” But she can’t find the words. She doesn’t know how to communicate like that.

**Click.**

Kimmie smiles to herself. “ _So how are we gonna find a good shelter for me?_ ”

Ron grins and gets up, walking over to his laptop, motioning for her to get in the chair in front of the desk. She has to jump to get up there, but when she’s in and comfy she sees pictures on Ron’s screen. She doesn’t know but he zoomed in to hide the text from her so she wouldn’t have to feel bad. And he starts talking:

Kimmie spaces out for a while looking at all the pretty pictures, and the pictures of kids who live at these homes. She wants to be their friend, but there’s too many of them. She starts to get really overwhelmed and a little dizzy. 

“Can we get breakfast, Mr. Stopstop?” Kimmie asks.

“Ew, don’t call me Stopstop, I _hate_ being called Stopstop,” Ron frowns. “Kim convinced everyone it was _so_ funny and—”

“STOPSTOP!” Kimmie jumps onto the bed, going up and down and chanting. “STOPSTOP STOPSTOP STOPSTOP!”

Ron shakes his head and grabs her out of the air and tickle attacks her into a pillow, and it’s so fun, she can’t stop laughing and kicking. He says a bunch of silly things to her about his revenge for that horrible name.

“Ron,” Kimmie says when she finally gets her breath back. “I love you.”

He smiles, and then goes right back into teasing. “I’m still mad at you though. Y’know, I think someone told you that one Kimmie...”

Kimmie blinks. “Umm… no. I made it up all by myself! Hee hee.”

“You suuuuure?”

Kimmie nods.

“Okay then Kimmie,” Ron shrugs and winks at her. “I know the actual answer about who told you about that, but Imma keep it to myself.”

“Huh? Hey! Nooooooo,” she whines. “I wanna know, I wanna know!”

Ron just shrugs!!!! Agggghh, he’s so mean sometimes. She signs the word “ _poophead”_ at him when he’s not looking. Take that, Stopstop.

* * *

Ron settles Kimmie into the backseat of the car in the booster seat. He mentions when she gets big enough, it’ll be okay to not sit in it anymore. It makes her excited. 

Before Ron goes to the wheel, he takes a knee in the parking lot and looks up at her. “Hey. Um. I want to tell you that… this place I’m taking you, there’s only one in town but it’s going to have kids like you. Some’ll be a lot older than you.”

Kimmie nods. “Are they all little like me?”

“No, Kimmie. Um. I’m not the most educated on this sort of thing, but you’re… trans. You really being a girl, people call that trans.”

“Trrraaaanss,” she commits it to memory.

“It’s not just you. There’s a lot of people who are, um, trans.”

“Are they all girls?”

“Some are boys, and some are just like, whatever they feel like. They’re going to know how to take care of you. If you feel uncomfortable, it’s okay. Tell me. If you can’t talk, tug on my sleeve, don’t worry.”

Kimmie nods. “And then you’re gonna go away?”

“Yeah,” he rasps. “My flight’s in a few hours. But it’s okay, Kimmie. The people who work there are going to know me, if you want to talk to me, you can. You can call me, vidchat me, I might not always be around but we can make it work. The people will help you remember when we’re supposed to talk. I’m not leaving you behind, alright?”

Kimmie grins. “This sounds really fun. Thank you for helping me.”

He wipes away another tear. Wow, he must really care about her. “You’ve helped me a lot too, Kimmie.”

* * *

Kimmie feels really scared the moment they walk into the center and clings really tightly to Ron. She’s been so confident and relaxed with Ron but something about all the other grown ups scares her. Ron talks to someone at the front desk but she can’t even make eye contact, and she fidgets a lot. 

She listens to their conversation while staring at her feet.

“Don’t worry, she’s shy.”

“What’s her name?”

“Hey, Kimmie. You want to tell him?”

She shakes her head. 

Ron pats her back. “That’s okay. Her name is Kimberly Ann Possible. Hey, do you want me to pick you up?”

She nods and he lifts her, and she looks to the man talking to Ron. He’s a lot younger than she thought, with a goatee and kind eyes, and Hispanic. 

“Um…” he purses his lips. “Is she, um, a fan?”

“Not exactly,” Ron laughs. “It’s okay, I’m uh, actually Kim’s… ex-husband, heh, and best friend. It doesn’t bother me.”

Kimmie looks and waves shyly, before hiding her face on Ron’s shoulder. He carries her around, and she takes in everything. There’s too many faces and too many names and too many rooms and too many things and she taps Ron’s shoulder at one point. “Can ya ask if I can take a nap?”

“Of course,” Ron smiles. “Hey, Jonah, is it okay if she takes a nap? She’s a little stressed out. We can talk for a bit and sort out some logistics.”

* * *

The place seems a little underfunded, and understaffed. Ron doesn’t know much about this sort of thing, it’s just the vibe he’s picking up on. But it speaks volumes of the workers, who clearly give a shit. He feels bad, because there’s no way Kimmie is going to feel safe before he goes. But there’s no workaround to that, it’s out of his control.

He’s at least thankful that the turnaround is so fast. He called these people yesterday in a panic, worried they wouldn’t be able to take her.

“I met her a few days ago,” Ron says. “She came up to me and asked for me to buy her food.”

The person with him is an older black trans woman. “Do you know how long she’s been on the streets?”

_Well that’s a loaded question._

“She says a few years but her memories are shot, I’m not sure what you could even get out of her. Something really traumatic must have happened, she doesn’t know her dead name, she’s been confused about whether or not she got kicked out or if her parents died…” Ron looks up at the woman. “She’s precious, she really reminds me of Kim. My um, yeah. _That_ Kim. If I can be honest, I really want to adopt her. But I just can’t right now. I’m… possibly going home to an eviction.”

“I understand,” the woman, Marcia, says. “Do you feel comfortable staying in contact with her?”

“Y-yeah,” Ron stutters. “I was hoping to do some video calls every once in a while if that’s possible, we can iron it out later, I’m sure. She um—has nightmares by the way. I had to cradle her for almost a half hour today to calm her down. They sound pretty violent.”

“Poor thing…”

“Yeah. I just want her to be safe, if I had more, I would… help. Would it be okay if I talked to some people and uh, there’s not a lot of people Kim and I knew who are still alive… but I could maybe convince them to donate to this shelter in her memory?” He pauses and then starts talking fast. “I don’t want to put any attention or pressure on Kimmie or anything, she doesn’t deserve that—”

“We would really appreciate that. Are _you_ okay?”

“Huh?” Ron looks up. 

“I’m going to help Kimmie, don’t worry,” Marcia assures him. “You’re just beating yourself up a lot, most men in your position wouldn’t be doing this right now.”

“Th-thanks,” Ron rubs his hands together. “It’s not easy, Kim like… just passed and… I had a question about her education. Is it in this building or do you just drive them to the school?”

“We drive them.”

“Okay. She’s really small, I trust that she’s nine, I’m just worried she might struggle. She’s sensitive to teasing and—”

“It’s going to be _alright,”_ she takes his hand and he blinks back tears. No one has ever needed to talk like this to him before. “If anything, Kimmie sounds like she might be the smartest kid in the room, figuring out how to survive alone at her age with no memories.”

“Yeah,” he’s finding it hard to speak at all, “Yeah, I think you’re right.”

A few minutes later, Ron goes to Kimmie’s new bedroom where she’s not even asleep. She’s kneeling on her bed, talking to a kid who is going to be rooming with her. Ron comes in quietly so as not to disturb them. Kimmie’s arm hitches to Pandaroo all the while.

“So if you wanna be a boy, and I wanna be a girl, do ya think we can trade bodies?” Kimmie asks. “Oh I dunno, that’d be dumb. I like being me.”

“Me too,” the boy says. He has long hair cut roughly. He’s probably around ten. “Oh, hi mister.”

Kimmie turns around, sees Ron and squeals. She gets up on her bed and runs over to Ron, pulling him over by the wrist, and introducing him to her new friend. This sort of thing goes on for a while. It becomes apparent to him that Kimmie will probably be okay, she’s very social. Maybe immature, but yeah, she’s still as fast of a learner as she’s ever been.

He’s letting go of her very soon, and it’s hard for him to hold it together. 

But Marcia’s right. Ron needs to take this time to work out his shit and Kimmie will be okay. Nothing apocalyptic is happening. 

* * *

Kimmie sits on her bed alone with Ron. He has to leave in five minutes and she’s starting to feel really scared all over. He’s holding her and rocking her back and forth, and she knows she’s only known him for a few days but she’s really going to miss him. 

“Ron…”

“‘Sup Kimmie?” he asks softly.

“No one here knows sign language.”

He squeezes her hand. “It’s okay, Kimmie. If you need help, if you’re anxious, I’m there for you.”

She doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t want to make him feel bad, and beg him to take her with him. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to find Kim by herself, not when she’s so scared. 

“Sometimes Kimmie though, I won’t be able to respond right away, because I have to work a lot,” Ron explains. “It doesn’t mean I hate you, okay? I’m going to be thinking of you a lot, probably more than you think of me. You’re going to make lots of friends.”

“Yeah,” she smiles softly to herself. “Everyone was really nice to me and the food is yummy and I like my bed. It’s just… I dunno. I liked when you cr-cradled me this morning… I don’t think a-anyone here can do that for m-me. There’s lots of kids who are sad too.”

“I know, Kimmie,” Ron rubs her back. It’s quiet, there’s so much she wants to say but… 

She turns around and looks him hard in the eye. She’s going to ask him what his job is but she flinches. She looks right into Ron’s eyes and a lot happens at once. It’s…

...his eyes are glazed over, his jaw is slightly clenched, his right eyebrow is twitching, his voice isn’t fluctuating in pitch like it’s supposed to, and he’s quieter than he ever has been.

“You’re scared too, huh?” Kimmie asks, as if she’s known him her whole life. She stops being scared. She just wants to protect Ron. In a very serious way. She wants to be stronger so she can help him. 

She keeps talking, voice tinkling like rain drops on a tin roof.“Whatever… y-you’re going home to… is scary.”

**Click.**

**Click.**

Ron blinks as tears start to trickle out and he nods. “Kimmie, don’t worry about me okay?” But he starts to break down. 

Kimmie holds him, buried in his warmth and doesn’t cry. 

Then Ron’s phone goes off. He checks it and wipes the tears from his eyes. “Kimmie, I have to go or I’ll miss my flight. I’m going to be okay, you… you really make me want to live a life okay?”

Kimmie nods. “I make you happy?”

“Yes, Kimmie, you make me very happy.”

She giggles and blushes. 

He musses her hair again. “Just because I’m not with you here,” he points at the room they’re in. “It doesn’t mean I’m not in here.” He cups at his heart, she does the same thing without noticing. “I’m always with you. Okay?”

He kisses her forehead, she kisses his cheek, and he leaves the room. Kimmie stays in her bed, holds Pandaroo and… and…

…

…

…

She’s in the parking lot, someone’s yelling at her to come back inside in a panic. Ron is getting in his car and stares at her. He holds up a hand and the caretaker stops behind her. Kim’s body vibrates, fists curled as she looks at Ron. 

Kimmie doesn’t know what to say, or how to express this, without being a big baby.

“I don’t like comin’ up with all these dumb nicknames for you like you’re my silly friend,” Kimmie says.

“Um,” Ron looks down at her, definitely very confused. 

“I kn-know y-you c-can’t be here, b-b-but...” Kimmie sniffles and runs up to him and full-on grabs his waist. “Is it okay… if I call you Daddy?”

Ron pales so fast, and looks past Kimmie to check with the caretaker that it’s okay, and kneels down to her level and hugs her tight. “Daddy it is. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

She grins from ear to ear. “Okay Daddy. I love you.”


	6. i will protect you always, i love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie gets sick of how badly her nightmares hurt her best friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: gender dysphoria
> 
> this chapter uses images and is best viewed on browser

_Kimmie splashed about in the bathtub that Mr. Stopstop was able to get them in the hotel. She was really dirty from sleeping on the streets for the week that she did, and the bath was just sooooo waaaaarm. The hotel people even gave them some bubbles, which were really fun. She cleaned herself, with Mr. Stopstop sitting besides her, back to the ceramic, head facing the door. He was being all awkward for no good reason._

_But because he wasn’t looking she started to goof off, and she threw a whole wad of bubbles at the ceiling! It looked really funny._

_“Kimmie,” Mr. Stopstop shook his head when he heard something smack against the ceiling. “Are you throwing bubbles?”_

_“Um, no!” Kimmie shouts, grabbing the bar of soap again. It was high above her on a shelf, so she had to stand up to grab it. Water fell down her sides, bubbles sticking to her skin, red from the hot water._

_“Kimmie,” Mr. Stopstop groaned, turning around to look up._

_Kimmie froze in fear. She didn’t know why, but she just suddenly got really scared. She stood there, hand inches from the bar of soap, eyes widening as Mr. Stopstop looked up and up and up._

_“The hotel workers will have to clean that Kimmie, we need to be nice to them,” Ron looked down at her and blushed immediately because she was naked. “Oof, sorry.”_

_He sat back down and looked away, and Kimmie just kind of stood there._

_She didn’t understand why she was so scared._

So the moment she could, Kim had to figure it out.

* * *

Kim and Kimmie lounge together in a hot spring they conjured for each other, and it’s very peaceful. Their skin tingles with feeling, steam clearing their throats. But Kim still finds it hard to focus on taking it in, and feels jealous as she sees Kimmie sighing dreamily in relief. 

She was naked in front of Ron, and it’s the first time since this started that she’s ever felt… she thinks it’s called dysphoria? She has… known she was trans, she just hasn’t processed what it means yet. She hadn’t even seen her, um, boy part, until that moment, which Ron saw too. And now she can’t stop thinking about it. Can’t stop looking at it, wishing this weren’t real. 

“How do you do it Kimmie?” Kim asks. “How does it not bother you?”

Kimmie looks over to her and frowns. “You’re sad about Ron seeing us like that?”

Kim sinks deeper into the bath. “I used to be so much bigger, and stronger. I’m not used to feeling so weak all the time, I was never scared of people like this, everyone towers over me and… I know I can’t defend myself right now.”

Kimmie lowers herself gently into the bath and swims over in these neat little breath strokes, landing besides Kim and taking her hand under the water. “When did you start getting tough?”

“Um, heh, well that’s kind of complicated,” Kim says, a nostalgia gleam coming to her eyes. “The missions started when I was about 13 but I actually started training a lot earlier.”

Kimmie turns to her and then looks up towards the sky, as if she saw something. Her eyes flash and she giggles, looking back to Kim. “You always wanted to be a hero! Woooow. Did Ron know?”

Kim blushes. “No, I told him I just wanted to be a babysitter but I was kinda hopin’ that, y’know, somethin’ might happen. I was um, nine, when we started, Kimmie. I did gymnastics and parkour and… I remember it all really well, Kimmie. But you know what I can’t remember?”

Kimmie frowns. 

Kim can’t remember what sex is like, she doesn’t even remember the word. She doesn’t know what grown-ups do together when they’re in love, she doesn’t even know why they kiss so long sometimes, it seems boring. Even romance, the nuances of it, don’t make sense in her head. She can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like.

The very second Kim, not Kimmie, willed herself to run into that parking lot and ask Ron if she could call him Daddy, it all died. 

But it doesn’t make her too sad. She’s not even that upset that Ron saw her naked by accident… this watered down, sexless version of her. She’s just a kid, it happens with parents sometimes, and she’s already kind of seeing Ron as more of a dad.

She doesn’t like it all slipping away this fast though, it scares her. It’s been one week and her mind has already regressed so much. 

She looks at Kimmie. “I don’t remember what I forgot. It’s… probably better like this?”

“I’m sorry being a kid is so hard for you,” Kimmie says so preciously. “At least we get to be together.”

“I’m worried about Daddy,” Kim says suddenly, seized by so much passion that she doesn’t even realize she called him _Daddy_ again. She doesn’t want to keep thinking about herself, it hurts too much. “He’s sad.”

“Kim…” Kimmie pats Kim’s back with her other hand, and Kim flinches. She feels so fragile tonight, and so aware of how much softer her skin is now, how sensitive she is to touch, how pretty much anything will be much bigger than she expects it to be. “...it’s not your fault he’s sad, okay?”

Kim nods as there’s this loud deafening _boom_ off in the distance. They both ignore it. This happens every night. 

The boom means they’re waking up soon. Kim doesn’t want to. She’s not ready to go out there today and make friends at the shelter. Not ready to be so blissfully unaware of who she really is. She wants to stay in the hot bath, with her best friend. She squeezes Kimmie’s hand. “I really couldn’t do this without you… but sometimes Kimmie, I think… what if I just didn’t try?”

Kimmie doesn’t seem to understand. Kim’s not sure if she does either, she’s not as good at using her words as she used to be. “What if… I just went away?”

Kimmie blinks. “N-no, Kim, no…”

“B-but,” Kim stutters. “I-i-if I were gone, we would… just be a boy. A-and people wouldn’t pick on you as much and you wouldn’t be so confused all the time…”

“Kim,” Kimmie’s voice becomes more stern all of a sudden. “You… know I’m not real right?”

Hot tears burn down Kim’s cheeks. Kim knows. She knows the little girl she’s talking to isn’t real, that she’s just her imaginary friend. She knows that if anything…

...Kim shouldn’t be calling herself Kim in this place. Because she’s Kimmie. Her imaginary friend is Kim, because she’s the more mature one. As silly and childish as she is, she grounds Kim.

Kim concentrates really hard and there’s a release as the names swap in her mind. 

Kim is Kimmie.

Kimmie is Kim.

“S-s-s-s-s… mmm,” she groans. “S-s-s-s…” Her lips get wet and she bites down a sob. “ _I’m sorry I keep making you call me Kim. I know I’m Kimmie. You should go away. I’m not a good friend._ ”

Kim squeezes little Kimmie’s hand. “No, we’re best friends forever. We can keep playing, okay?”

Kimmie nods, tears shining on her baby fat-laden cheeks. “Okay.”

The boom in the distance grows, scraping against the ground. There are two voices screaming gibberish in the massive cloud of black, arguing with each other. Kimmie’s ears prick up. Tonight is a nightmare about the last time she ever saw Ron. 

It was the night Kim and Ron both said the cruellest things they could have to each other. Kimmie dimly realizes as she holds her best friend that she doesn’t remember what it was they said to each other, just that it tore her up inside. She’d rather forget it.

But it’s important, and it’s probably _why_ Ron is so upset. Maybe if Kimmie figures out why he’s sad… she can help him. She can save him. 

“Kimmie, that’s not how it works, you know that,” Kim whispers, leaning her cheek against Kimmie’s shoulder. It’s so thin and bony, it’s likely no comfort. Kimmie narrows her eyes. 

“I wanna see what’s in there,” Kimmie mutters to herself as it gets closer and closer. It’s going to run through them and they’ll wake up screaming, and get even sadder when Daddy isn’t there to hold them like he did yesterday. “But… you shouldn’t.”

“Kimmie… there’s lotsa stuff you need to forget about now that you’re a kid again. Please.”

“Shhh,” Kimmie massages Kim’s neck. The cloud gets so close. “Shh.”

“Kim, please,” Kim whines. “For me. For us.”

Kimmie closes her eyes and she hears the first words screech into her ears—

“— _Drakken isn’t even trying to take over the world, Kim. He just wants you.”_

She hears her former self draw in an ugly breath and she remembers. And she looks down in horror at Kim who is crying as the memory overtakes them. That’s not fair. She may not be real, but she’s going to protect her, she’s going to do absolutely everything she can to protect her.

Kimmie blinks back tears, and screams. “NO!”

All of it implodes at once, the cloud splintering into a hurricane around them, too fast and cutting for any full sentences to come through. It focuses Kim and Kimmie in the eye of the hurricane and gets more and more aggressive. Kimmie holds Kim so tight, she needs to protect Kim. Keep thinking about protecting her, Possible. Focus.

It’s scary. It’s really scary. 

They never last this long in the nightmares.

Kimmie raises her hand and it pinches a nerve to do it, but she grabs at the air and squeezes, and the hurricane implodes again and this time shifts into four inky tornados that spiral off into the sky, and then fly back down like javelins. They strike the hot bath around them, embedding through the ground and sticking up like monuments. 

The screams and wails slow until they’re whispers that drift away. 

The bath drains and Kimmie looks down at Kim’s back, her spine pushing so hard against the skin. Summer dresses fall over the two of them and they huddle even closer. It keeps them both warm.

Kim’s fast breathing slows until it’s calm and almost unnoticeable. She looks up as the black abyss crackles with white and gold filtering in. Morning is coming. Kim looks to Kimmie, smiling softly. “I’m really proud of you, Kimmie. That musta been really hard.”

Kimmie feels small again, and childish. That memory is dead now, she’s never going to be able to find it, and she thinks… even if she were to learn what it is that her past self and Daddy argued over, she wouldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t believe he could say such a thing to her. Or she him. 

“Th-thanks,” Kimmie whispers, pulling Kim up to her feet, the golden light shining against her cheek. She’s sort of scared about what that means for her. If she keeps erasing memories like this, in addition to the ones she’s naturally losing her hold on… can she really stay together? She had no idea it’d be like this, how she’d fight every day to retain mere shreds of her former self. 

It’s hard to know that when you’re not even sure if you’re the parasite or the host. 

“You’re really strong, I hope we do cool stuff today now,” Kim giggles, holding Kimmie’s hand and thumping into her just before light runs through them. 

It ends up being the waking Kimmie’s first day without nightmares.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading. I worked pretty hard on this one. The towers took so long to get right. I spent like, an hour drafting one version and facepalmed when I realized it looked stupid because I didn't use any kind of shading or perspective haha. 
> 
> I want to clarify a few things if that's cool, because I know this fic is different from most on the site and asks more from the reader haha
> 
> The stuff happening in Kimmie's head isn't -actually- happening. These scenes are metaphors of what is going on inside of her head, as the original Kim transforms more and more into this totally new person. At some point in the story, Kimmie is obviously going to figure out that she -is- the Kim Possible that 'died,' but when that does happen it's not going to turn on the switch that lets her access more of these memories. 
> 
> And from this point forward, in that dreamscape, Kim, our Kim, is Kimmie. And her imaginary friend is Kim.
> 
> <3 thanks for reading!


	7. i didnt realize i was giving you my scars too

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie plays baseball.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: PTSD

Making friends is kind of hard, especially at the shelter. She’s so much smaller than all of the other kids, both like, physically, and in age. She might actually be the youngest one there.

She’s lucky enough to have her room mate, Luke, who is ten. Most of the kids are big and go to high school. They tower over Kimmie, and the most she can get from them is a friendly pat on the head because everyone agrees: Kimmie is very cute. 

(Which gets annoying after a while.  _ Obviously _ she’s cute.)

In the few moments she does get to talk to people, she always messes it up. Kimmie thinks most things are boring, and just wants to talk about Kim Possible. But hardly anyone ever wants to talk about  _ her _ . It kinda sounds like… people don’t actually like Kim Possible that much? That’s so silly though. Why would they not like her?

Jonah won’t tell Kimmie anything. She keeps asking him if he can let her use the computer but it’s always a hard no.

It’s so frustrating! Especially because when she talks to Luke, she realizes pretty quickly that she doesn’t actually know  _ anything _ about Kim Possible. 

Which is why Kimmie’s first video call with Ron goes like this:

_ “Daddy, can you tell me more about Kim Possible?” _

_ “Uh, honestly, sweetheart, I… miss her too much to really get into this. I’m sorry.” _

_ “Ooooooh… did you still love her?” _

_ “Ah! Kimmie! No, no, no, noooooohkay maaaaaaaybe I still liked Kim when… why am I talking about this with you? _ ”

“ _ S’okay Daddy, I’m gonna find her for you and you can get married again and maybe she’ll be my Mommy. But okay, I gotta go learn more about Kim Possible, bye.” _

_ “Kimmie, wait _ —”

But still, Jonah won’t budge. No computer. No videos. He says for now she should focus on catching up with the other kids. She’s supposed to be in fourth grade right now and the hope is to get her into some kind of  _ accelerated learning program _ . It sounds really stressful. How is she going to find Kim if she’s so busy studying? 

She’s proud of herself for being so strong. She thought she’d be a weepy mess, being back in a shelter again, and away from her Daddy… but she feels okay! The people at the shelter, Marcia especially, are really nice to her and there’s a bunch of activities to keep her busy. They do finger painting and drawing and some games in the playground.

The playground stuff is what really gets Kimmie excited.

* * *

Kimmie stinks at sports though. She tries her best to have fun, Marcia keeps reminding her it’s okay if her team loses. She can’t hit the baseball very hard, she can’t throw it very far, and even when they stick her in the outfield, she can never tell where the ball is going to land. So she doesn’t really do anything but get out before going to first base.

Yet somehow she ends up covered in dirt anyways, but she kinda likes that. Dirt is fun. It’s not fair that she’s losing just ‘cause she’s smaller than everybody. It gets so bad they give her a tee ball thing to hit her ball off of so she can play.

Things pick up during the final inning of this particular game. Two outs and her team needs a home run or they lose. One more strike and they lose. No one from team is on a base. 

Score a run and they go to the next inning for a tiebreaker, unless they score another run. Then they win.

But Kimmie’s up to bat and everyone on her team is mumblin’ about how it’s over because Kimmie stinks so bad. 

Kimmie wishes they wouldn’t be so loud. She slings the bat over her shoulder and walks up to the mound. Jonah comes out and puts the tee in front of her. She feels really nervous, and the pitcher laughs at her while she lines up her shot. 

She wants to smack that dumb smirk off his face.

Kimmie compulsively winds the bat back and swings.

At the very last second, fireworks go off in her mind.

* * *

_ Kim stumbles back. She runs her gauntlet across her jaw and knocks away the blood so it doesn’t dry.  _

_ She stares at Shego who approaches her with such confidence, her muscles flaring with green plasma; she’s never fought like this before.  _

_ Kim is alone and she is human. She doesn’t stand a chance, not like this.  _

_ Shego tilts her head to the side. “Aw… Kimmie upset she’s losing when I’m actually trying for once?” _

_ Shego gets closer. A few more steps and Kim is done for. She has to do something.  _

_ So she feints. She throws so much gusto into an upper hook that dies halfway through, but it’s fast enough to trick Shego into swinging her wrists up to block the hit, opening her up to a gut punch that’ll give Kim the opening she needs to survive. _

_ The second fist sneaks in and _ —

* * *

* * *

Kimmie’s brain tingles. It’s muscle memory. It’s strategy. Her mind wills her into repeating the same move to win the game. Kimmie doesn’t know where this sudden insight is coming from but… well…

Kim Possible always trusts her instincts.

* * *

* * *

Kimmie’s bat swings in a full circle just before hitting the ball, masking its direction, and knocks it lightly from below. The ball flies up in a hook-like motion. Up, forward, and curves down, landing halfway between home plate and the pitcher. The pitcher dives forward as Kimmie sprints through the dirt, moving as fast as she possibly can.

Running’s hard, her legs are short and—

* * *

_ Bomb goes off in one minute, Kim is the only agent nearby. Bomb is  _ **_also_ ** _ one quarter mile away. Fastest quarter mile is forty four seconds, and Kim is, uh, not an Olympian.  _

_ Doesn’t really matter at this point, she has to at least  _ **_try_ ** _. _

_ “Just give it your best shot,” Will, her partner, tells her through the radio. “You miss it, well fuck us in the ass, just run. Focus. Fast. Good posture, and _ —”

“ _ Can’t listen. Running. _ ”

_ “There she is. Don’t think about the bomb, just think about doing your best run ever. Do all the things you know you’re supposed to _ —”

_ She kills the walkie feed to get some silence so she can do that. So she can run perfectly. She tries not to think about the thousands who will die, including herself, if she botches it. She thinks about breaking a world record instead. And she does it. She makes it. _

_ (She cuts it a little close though.) _

* * *

—Kimmie runs like she never has before and she feels so serene as she slides through the dirt into first base, a fraction of a second before the ball hits the waiting glove above her. She grins to herself, doing a little dance to celebrate running her first base ever.

Her team cheers and she laughs as the bad guy team gets all flustered, losing to a nine year old.

Kimmie pants, watching the next batter come up. He’s fifteen and has generally ignored Kimmie whenever she’s said hi. That’s okay. They’re teammates now!

“You got this Greg!” she screams, leaning back to face second base. The moment the ball leaves the pitcher’s glove, Kimmie’s runnin’. And she ain’t stoppin’. Even if he doesn’t hit the ball, she’s stealin’ second.

Kimmie wants to win and prove to everyone that she’s still good even though she’s little. 

_ Clap! _ The bat hits the ball  _ hard _ and it flies off into the air. Kimmie runs so hard she accidentally trips immediately, running her knees through the dirt. Tears spring to her eyes, because aaaaaaaaaaaaagh NO! She needs to run! Run Kimmie run! No pain no gain.

So she sprints as fast as she can, blood dripping from one of her knees, face screwed up in pain, and she lands on second base.

Kimmie checks over her shoulder and she sees the outfielder scrambling, just about to scoop up the ball. 

Really, Kimmie  _ should _ stay on second. Play it safe.

But…

* * *

_ Kim is fifteen years old and  _ **_terrified_ ** _. But she’s not leaving Ron behind, no matter how many times the Global Justice people have  _ **_demanded_ ** _ she go home. Ron is trapped. Fire. Lab. Burning. Scary. Explosions all around, one hits Kim’s arm and singes her shoulder. She bites her lip, draws blood from herself, and keeps going. _

_ It’s not a mission accomplished if she comes home without her best friend. Never. _

_ “ _ **_Kimberly Ann Possible, this is Doctor Betty Director, you still have an out. Leave the facility NOW. You stopped the bomb, you saved the world, it’s over. I’m sorry about your friend_ ** —”

_ Her Kimmunicator falls into the blaze and Kim keeps going. She blinks back tears as the smoke overwhelms her. This isn’t the kind of shit she thought she’d be doing when she started these missions. She kind of hates the missions, she realizes as she runs.  _

_ Ron’s not dying for something so stupid. Kim runs and finally finds Ron, crouched low on the ground in his gas mask, just like she taught him. She scares the shit out of him when she jumps down and touches his shoulder.  _

_ He really didn’t think anyone would come for him. She can already see through his goggles that he’s confused, and upset she’d risk her life like this.  _

_ Body heaving, Kim picks him up. She doesn’t know why, or how she can even manage it, but she takes Ron’s body and  _ **_books it_ ** _. _

_ She smashes a window open with her shoulder and falls slack against the frame, body going limp fast. Ron drops off her and with her last bit of her energy, she hands him her grappling hook. _

_ “See that?” she jerks her head towards a building in the distance. “Hook to that, carry me, we’ll be okay. You got it?”  _

_ “Kim, I—” Ron stammers. “I don’t know how to—” _

_ “Can’t. Weak,” Kim whispers as she deflates. “I know you can do it. I love you. C’mon.” _

_ Ron pulls her in, says nothing, and BAM both of their bodies fly out of the building, cross the precipice, and slam against the brick wall of Ron’s target within seconds.  _

_ Hurts like Hell, but it’s cold here. No smoke. They both laugh together, just dangling, and he looks to her. “Kim…” _

_ “Sh,” she pets his cheek. “It’s fine, this is what I do, right? High risk, high reward. Let’s keep _ —”

* * *

Kimmie keeps going and everyone on her team screams for her to stop and go back. Go back Kimmie! So silly. No wonder they’re losin’.

The third baseman laughs in her face. Well she’ll be the one laughing soon enough.

Kimmie doesn’t really get why she’s doing this, why she’s playing so hard to win, her body is just… asking her to do it. Like she feels uncomfortable staying in one place for too long.

She slides into the third base, and does a quick check. Ball is halfway between second and third. Within moments third will have it.

So she runs again. Kimmie runs so fast, blazing towards home base, kicking up dirt along the way. Her limbs flap like noodles and she has to remind herself to use good running posture even though she doesn’t actually know what that means. But she does it, draws fire from the stunned third baseman who slackjaws at the stupid thing she’s doing. He shakes it off and throws the ball.

“GO!” Kimmie screams to her teammate still chilling on first base. She waves her hand towards second and looks back to home. The ball is in the air, so she runs and runs and runs and runs and runs and—

—dives—

—and slams into the base.

“SAFE!” the umpire calls and everyone starts SCREAMING. 

Kimmie just lies there, stunned, covered in dirt, with blood trickling from her knee. She gets up slowly, and walks back to the dugout while her teammates in line to bat rush over to her, singing her praises. It’s kinda hard for her to focus on them though, she’s really confused. 

Kimmie knows she did it but she’s not… happy about it? Her heart is still racing. Her legs want to keep running. 

She doesn’t get it. Doesn’t get what is happening. She kinda wants to ask Marcia if she can see a nurse or somethin’ but…

_ CLAP! _ the ball flies high into the air and hits the grass far off. The bad guy team blitzes to get someone out, but they’re too late. The boy Kimmie told to steal second crosses home plate and that’s the game. 

And they all thank Kimmie. One of the older girls lifts Kimmie up into a piggy back so she can see everyone cheering for her. She just kinda blushes, heart still racing. 

Later, when she gets to go back to her bed, she immediately reaches for Pandaroo. He always helps when she’s anxious. 

Marcia slips into her room and looks at her hard. “Hi, I just wanted to check in with you. I figured you would be really excited about winning, but you didn’t seem like yourself.”

Kimmie frowns. It sounds like she’s in trouble because her body’s acting all funny. 

“Are you okay?” Marcia asks.

Kimmie lifts her head.

* * *

_ Kim just saved the world. This caper was pretty well-run, from start to finish, it all went as expected. _

_ Doesn’t change the fact that they could have so easily died at least five times during that one. She’s positive Ron doesn’t know. He’s the one with superpowers after all, it’s no big for him anymore.  _

_ Ever since Lowardia, the villains have just been so… horrible. They really want her and Ron dead. But she did it. She disarmed the bomb, made sure no one died, captured all of the villains, and yet… _

_...her heart is still pounding. It makes her mind race.  _

_ There must be something she’s forgetting to do. That has to be it. But didn’t she complete the mission? It’s over, right? _

_ Ron’s thumb glides across Kim’s wrist and she flinches out of fear. She draws away from him and immediately apologizes for her mistake. “Sorry! I’m just—uh—a little jumpy, heh. Um… wh-what’s up, Ron?” _

_ “I wanted to check in, um,” Ron looks like he had some funny one-liner to tell her, but now concern is settling into his eyes and Kim just feels so bad. She hates making him worry over her. “Yo, KP, uh… are… um, are you okay?” _

_ Are you okay.  _

_ The three words echo through her mind. She’s not, clearly. Something’s wrong, her body won’t exit mission mode. This has never happened before.  _

_ But what is Ron going to do about it? What good does it do him for him to know about her personal bullshit? _

_ A few months later when it starts to infect even her day offs, she sees a doctor. PTSD they tell her. Kim snorts. PTSD. Yeah right. But nope. Kim has PTSD.  _

_ Kim frowns, opens her mouth and says— _

* * *

“Yes,” Kimmie lies, so anxious behind her fake smile.

Marcia just pats on the back and leaves her room, shutting the door behind her.

Kimmie falls sideways into her pillow and hugs Pandaroo close. It makes her sad… 

...how easy it was to lie like that.


	8. ha, now you know how angry i feel all the time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie goes to kindergarten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: sexual assault

“H-h-hi—” Kimmie practiced this so many times, but she’s stuttering now. Standing in front of the classroom like this is scary, especially without Pandaroo. (Jonah told her kids might make fun of her for bringing a stuffed animal to school.) “—m-m-my n-names’s Kimmie. K-Kimmie Ann P-possible. I’m n-nine years old and I like t-teeball. I’ve never b-been to school before so I’m exc-cited to um, be here.”

Kimmie gets shown to her table and sits with the other kids and really focuses on the lessons. She wants to learn as fast as possible so she can get to fifth grade by the time she’s ten. But it’s kinda hard to pay attention, a lot of the kids whisper stuff and space out. 

If Jonah just let her bring Pandaroo, she thinks she’d be okay but she just feels so anxious. It’s really hard for her to follow along, but at some point Mrs. Rosemary asks about something Kimmie knows! She can prove how smart she is and maybe feel better.

Kimmie’s hand shoots up. 

“Yes Kimmie?” the teacher, Mrs. Rosemary, asks.

“Seventeen! Eight plus nine is seventeen!” she yelps.

“Hm?” Mrs. Rosemary looks at the blackboard, where that equation is indeed scrawled on. “Oh, I suppose I was pointing at that, but Kimmie we’re talking about shapes right now.”

“Oh,” she slouches back in her chair, cheeks rosy. “Sorry.” 

Mrs. Rosemary keeps teaching and Kimmie spends a few minutes feelin’ sorry for herself, and once she’s done with that she starts to get distracted. 

Because she knew nine plus eight is seventeen. She wasn’t even thinking about it! She just saw it on the board and automatically knew. 

Woooooow… she’s still smart.

“Kimmie?” Mrs. Rosemary asks.

Snickers all around. Kimmie looks around. “Wh-what?”

“Kimmie, it’s very important to pay attention in class,” the teacher says crossly. “What shape is this?”

Kimmie looks at the board. 

It has one two three four… four sides. And is shaped like a box. It’s pretty long and short. “That’s a square!” 

The teacher smiles as if she expected this incorrect answer and goes back to teaching. “No, see children, this is what we call: a _rectangle._ The lines on a square are all the same size and—”

Oof. Maybe Kimmie is super smart, but she really needs to pay attention.

* * *

Overnight, in the abyss, Kimmie kneels down in the dark and shuffles around little note cards around rapidly, muttering things under her breath. “A-B-C-D… E. F? Um, G… shoot.” She closes her eyes and sings under her breath, “ _Ay bee cee dee ee eff gee. Aiche…_ ” She grabs the H and slides it into place. “ _Ie…_ um shoot.”

Kimmie doesn’t even notice Kim coming up to her, and yelps when the girl says hello. 

“Hi Kimmie, wanna play?” Kim asks.

Kimmie shakes her head. “No I gotta study.”

Kim doesn’t even really know why she wants to study so bad, or why she can’t stop. But she just repeats this over and over again.

(Really, it’s because Kimmie, the real Kimmie, made note cards for herself to learn and studied until she fell asleep.)

“Oh okay,” Kim frowns. “Let’s hang out at least!” She rolls to the ground, and thumps against Kimmie’s side, laying on her stomach. “Sorry you have to do kindergarten again…”

“It’s okay,” Kimmie says, very distracted. “Learning all this again is kind of… frustrating, like, it’s all at the tip of my tongue—hey actually, can you jump into my memories real quick? You can probably get a cheat sheet to tell me if I’m right or not.”

Kim just lays there, staring. “You sure?”

“Yeah, I trust you going in more than I trust myself, I’ll get all distracted, it’s okay.”

Kim gets up and takes a few steps back, then dives forward, ripping a hole in the abyss, half her body falling through it. “Um… is this right?” She pulls back out and the portal shifts into a screen playing a memory from her high school days. 

_“Alright students,”_ Mr. Barkin struts back and forth across the room. _“POP QUIZ!”_

“Ew, no, get it away,” Kimmie waves her hand at it. “Try when I was five, okay?”

“Ooh, you’re right,” Kim dives back in, legs jittery with excitement. Within moments, she’s back, but the portal stays still. She jumps in place and tries to get Kimmie’s attention.

“What’s up?” Kimmie can’t help but smile. Kim’s being so silly today.

“I found when you met Daddy!” 

It takes Kimmie a second to realize she’s talking about Ron. Pink rushes to her cheeks and her hands slow down. “Yeah, I met Daddy—uh! I mean—I mean—R-Ron… shoot.”

“Oh no, don’t get upset,” Kim comes over and grabs Kimmie’s shoulders. “It’s okay.”

Kimmie does her best not to cry. “Sorry… it’s just, um, anyways I met Daddy in kindergarten. He was really nice to me and we became best friends right away.”

“Woooow,” Kim gets up and goes back to the portal, reaching in. 

Kimmie collects herself enough to keep studying and really picks up the pace. “He was really weird and I was really weird too as a kid… it’s good we became friends early because I think if we met in high school, it wouldn’t have worked out.”

“How come?” Kim asks.

“Um, well, in high school, it’s really dumb, but you’re not ‘sposed to be friends with nerds and stuff. Sometimes it kinda made it harder for us, but it worked out. Oh jeez.”

“What?”

“We’re gonna make new friends… like, best friends and boyfriends and girlfriends and ugh, that’s gonna be so weird…”

“How come? Friends are fun! Wait, I have a ques—”

Kimmie keeps monologuing. “Yeah, but… I haven’t made new friends or anything in so long, so like…”

“I’m confused,” Kim marches out, the portal fading behind her. “You said girlfriends?”

“Yeah,” Kimmie says plainly. “Um, we like girls and boys, that’s gonna be kind hard too, I kinda hope we get to date a girl though…”

“How come?”

“Never got to try it, heh,” Kimmie laughs weakly. “You find a cheat sheet?”

“No, but you got your answers right,” Kim points out. “You’re spelling words now.”

Kimmie checks her work and sure enough… she is. Bright outlines of things are appearing in front of her and she’s spelling them out with her finger. 

“Hey hey! Look at me!” Kim shouts, bringing her fingers to her face. She splays them out and neon whispers extend from her nose. “Spell what I am!”

“Oh you’re a cat,” Kimmie says, stopping to giggle. “Cat is spelled Kay aye—” She stops and frowns. “—kay… no no. It’s um. It’s cee aye tee, right?” 

“Yup!”

* * *

Kindergarten goes okay for Kimmie, until about one month in. 

Kimmie’s playing pretend by herself during recess when she hears one of the boys who’s nice to her yelp in fear. She turns and sees him near the jungle gym, surrounded by three of the biggest kids in the class. Even Kimmie is kinda scared of them, and though she’s pretty sure she’s supposed to go tattle and get Mrs. Rosemary, she feels suddenly protective, like it’s up to her. 

She’s little though. 

But Kimmie doesn’t think people should get hurt, and none of the other kids are helping. And the boy might get hurt by the time Kimmie finds Mrs. Rosemary.

So Kimmie marches up to the kids. The nice boy, Emile, is crying, and crawling backwards. Kimmie runs and gets in front of him, holding her hands in the air. “Hey! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?!” she screams, trying to sound tough.

The three boys draw back for a moment and then one elbows the other in the gut, and they chortle. “What, like _you_?”

“Huh?” she steps back. She’s just a few inches shorter than them, but still. “N-n-no. I’m n-not—”

“Aren’t you like, as old as two of us?” the lead boy, Troy, snickers, getting closer. 

“No, five and five makes ten a-and I’m nine,” Kimmie says as the boys split into three, circling around her. Emile hugs her skinny leg, weeping loudly. Kimmie wants to run away, but she should be tough for Emile. 

Kim Possible would protect the boy, Kimmie thinks. Kim Possible protected everyone! And Kimmie hasn’t found her yet, but maybe it’d make Kim happy to know some girl is trying to be like her. So Kimmie gets defensive.

“My dad says you’re really a boy,” one of the boys, Troy, sneers. 

“Your dad is dumb, I’m a girl,” she shoots back, wishing her hair weren’t so short. The boys have almost a full perimeter around her. Something in her is steeling itself, it’s making her think strategically. Gently, she kicks Emile in the small of his back, nodding her head towards a gap between the boys. But he’s too scared to take advantage of it. 

The boys get closer and Kimmie tries her best not to shake, and then it comes to her, an old move she shouldn’t know, that always worked for Kim.

_Take one down, get behind him and they lose their perimeter._

It doesn’t come to Kimmie quite like that, but she _knows_ and charges at Troy, bashing him in the stomach with her head, arms striking like viper heads to knock him over. It hurts her head way more than it hurts him and she feels kind of dizzy as she falls off of him, her body all squiggly. 

That should have worked, her muscles say. Why didn’t it work.

( _I’m weak, right, I’m really weak. I can’t do those things anymore_ , she reflects later that night in the abyss.)

Troy picks her up and drags her in like a vice, and the boys abandon Emile to surround her. One grabs her skirt by the hem and yanks it off her hips. She tries to scream and Troy stuffs her mouth with his fist, his other hand rolling her pretty shirt up

She bites the boy but he holds his fist there until she feels cold air strike her waist as they peel her clothes off, and… and… they’re laughing at her. And she can’t do anything. They throw her on the ground and dirt getting all over her. Her clothes snap back into place but the boys already saw it. And they’re running away now and she’s crying because she doesn’t know what to do. She’s too scared to move, she wants to go home and never go to school again. She doesn’t care if she never learns how to read or be smart or grow up, this isn’t fair. She didn’t do anything wrong.

Two big hands come to Kimmie’s little shoulders, and Mrs. Rosemary bends down to her level. She says stuff to Kimmie but she doesn’t understand any of it, she’s still too scared. She tries to sign something but it doesn’t work, Mrs. Rosemary doesn’t understand sign language. Kimmie is cold and being pulled along the teacher’s hand like a little girl who got lost somewhere.

The boys are lined up and Mrs. Rosemary screams at them, all while holding Kimmie’s hand.

The boys’ parents are going to get involved, and they might even get kicked out of the school for hurting Kimmie like that. 

That doesn’t really make Kimmie feel happy. She wants more bad things to happen to them, and see wants to see it. Which is scary, she doesn’t want to hurt people so she hides behind Mrs. Rosemary until the bad feelings go away.

“You boys stay here,” Mrs. Rosemary snaps, pulling on Kimmie’s arm. “Come on, Kimmie. Come with me.” 

Kimmie doesn’t really want to go but she lets herself get dragged along. This doesn’t feel right to her. Her body still craves satisfaction. So she bides her time, and waits while Mrs. Rosemary gets onto the phone on the wall in the classroom and the moment she gets swept up into some argument about demanding the father pick up his son _now,_ Kimmie scampers away and back to where the three boys are standing.

Though they’re all crying because they’re in trouble, they still snicker at the sight of her. All the other kids are away from them, Ms. Stevenson, the teacher’s assistant, is distracting all the kids and no one notices Kimmie at all. 

“You’re a boy,” Troy laughs at her. “I saw your thing!”

Kimmie looks away from them, thinking as they continue to make fun of her, and then all of a sudden she kicks Troy in the family jewels. He crumples, crying. Before he can scream and get everyone to look at them, she slips between the two boys and grabs Troy’s jaw, holding it shut. The other boys just stare at her, they don’t even try to help their friend.

She stares at him. She doesn’t flinch and stares. Somehow, she knows how to do this, how to scare someone. His writhing calms down and she releases him, walking away without a word. 

He’ll never hurt anyone again now.

When she re-enters the classroom, Mrs. Rosemary looks to her in a panic. “Kimmie! I told you to stay with me, please. Stay here with me, okay?”

Kimmie frowns. She still doesn’t remember how to talk so she nuzzles up against Mrs. Rosemary again, and a hand falls on her shoulder.

Mrs. Rosemary nods and makes her third phone call. Kimmie looks out the window and sees the confused boys… still crying and scared of her...

...and she smiles.

* * *

Ron hadn’t seen Kim for an entire year following the divorce. Not even an email or text, just completely gone. Like a ghost. He was used to it though. Kim disappeared from time to time, it just sucked that he didn’t even know anyone who knew her that could tell him whether or not she’s still alive. Because everyone who knew them was, um, dead.

The night she did show up was, uh, bad timing. And exactly a year from the day he signed the papers. Not a coincidence. It was never a coincidence with Kim. She stumbled into his Bueno Nacho, a massive pea-coat that definitely wasn’t hers buttoned around her body. The pants weren’t hers either, they were a cut he knew she didn’t like, and rolled up to the ankle because they were too long

He tried not to look at the scar. There was an ugly patch of leathery skin under her eye, and tugging at her lip. 

“Hey Mark, let’s swap, I’ll run reg,” Ron said, pivoting onto the register just in time for Kim to come up to him. It was late, and she was the only customer. Though he doubted she wanted to buy anything. 

“Hi,” Ron rasped. 

Kim looked at him like they had been with each other all day. “Hi. I was in town. Figured I’d say something.”

Ron crossed his arms. “Are you wearing a hospital gown under all that?”

She looked away guiltily. Classic Kim. “Yeah. I snuck out the window. It was kinda fun. Remember when we had to bust you out when—no, you probably don’t want to talk about that. Sorry.”

Ron shrugged. “Nah, that one was funny. That dumb cop dude was so convinced we were the bad guys and… are you safe right now?”

Kim stared blankly at him. 

Who was he trying to fool, Kim would never say yes to that, so Ron told her exactly what they were going to do and she obediently waited at a booth until his shift was over. 

Ron drove her to his place. Pretty boring for the most part. She couldn’t really talk about most things, either from trauma or from confidentiality. She apologized a lot. Pretty normal. He hated how normal it was.

When they got to his place, she took the jacket and pants off, because she looked ridiculous in them and she stood there in his studio apartment in that light blue hospital gown, her limbs bare, taut with muscle, dominated by white scars.

Someone really did a number on her this time, he thought, when he saw the thick, thick bandages and stitches. 

She groaned and pulled the gown off, completely bare to him, and Ron’s eyes immediately fell on the scars on her back. Her shoulders. Her neck. Her breasts. Their bodies had always been pretty fucked up, but hers had gotten exponentially worse over time. 

And there was a noticeable difference between her body before the divorce and her body after. What was he supposed to say though? _Stop?_ Tsch. As if. 

Ron took a seat as she leafed through their closet. He still had a bunch of her shit she was too nervous to come back to take. He really tried not to look at her body, but he still loved her so much and...

It was deliberate. Calculated. Kim never acted thoughtlessly. She knew what this was doing to him. It was her way of telling him something so true she could never dare say it out loud. So Ron distracted himself, because he had to.

“Remember when you first stripped in front of me?” he said suddenly, struck so vividly by a memory. “We were, uh, thirteen?”

“Fourteen,” she corrected with the echo of a laugh.

“Yeah. And we _just_ learned that we were equipped for the wrong kind of mission.”

She looked back at him, buttoning a silk black blouse up. “I didn’t even think about it, I just yanked that scuba suit off! It was super embarrassing, but like, you were cool about it. You were always cool about it.” 

She looked for too long, blushed, and turned away. “I don’t even remember what the new mission was.”

“Bermuda Triangle?” he asked.

“No, I had a dress under my suit for that one. Was it Killigan?”

“Nah, Killigan never had a theme that made us wear gear.”

They stripped together a lot when they were kids. Sometimes to change, sometimes out of necessity of cleaning a wound, sometimes because they just needed it. They had slept together before dating, nothing sexual. They’d just hold each other underneath blankets and not peek. It was before they even sorted out their feelings for one another. 

Because they were the only two who could understand one another, and it reminded them that they were human.

“You know, um,” she looked back at him, suddenly nervous as she slipped the black slacks on. “I wanted to tell you something. About that. It doesn’t matter or anything, just…” She sighed, and signed. “ _I think I’m demisexual._ ”

Ron blinked. “Yeah? I’m gonna be real, I don’t know what that is, no offense.”

She laughed and sat besides him, signing all while tying her tie. “ _I wasn’t attracted to you for a long time. It only started happening when we really began to connect emotionally.”_ She paused, thinking for a moment. “ _It’s hard to say, because I don’t really have the ability to connect like that anymore. But I know that I could love a girl, or a boy. It’s like how you’re bi, but I need an emotional connection first. It’s true. It’s me._ ” 

“Thanks for telling me,” Ron rasped, staring at her, tugging on one of her sleeves. She wore this suit to their wedding and wore it so many times since it got worn out to the point of both of them forgetting she wore it to the wedding. “I haven’t been with anyone else by the way.”

“ _Sorry,”_ she signed, and then they just looked at each other. It was the facial scar, that was the one that got him. “ _Don’t be like me, please._ ”

He knew why she showed him her scars; she needed him to see it, to let him know that she knew what this was doing to her, and that she was going to keep letting it happen. Because she was planning on working this until she died.

* * *

Kimmie looks awful guilty once her and Ron get onto the Google Hangout chat. 

The past hour has been chaos. Someone hurt Kimmie, that’s all he knows. It sounds like some kids assaulted her in a pretty targeted attack… it doesn’t feel real. 

She was doing so well at school too, he’s been hearing she’ll get to skip to first grade soon. Now the poor thing is probably traumatized. 

Ron gets involved because Kimmie is nonverbal. She’s not even signing. The teachers and folks at the shelter are hoping Ron can be the one to get her. 

He probably can. Ron always gets to Kim. 

“ _Am I really a boy?_ ” she signs to him, motions very restrained. “ _They kept calling me a boy, they took my stuff off and then I kicked one of them really hard. I think only a boy would do that._ ”

Ron didn’t know that she hurt one of the kids. It doesn’t sound like anyone knows she hurt someone. Is he supposed to tell the adults she’s violent? He’d rather not. If she was literally anyone else he would but… he can’t hurt her. 

“You’re a girl, honey,” Ron assures her.

She nods. “ _I thought so. Those boys were dumb._ ”

“Kimmie,” Ron says slowly, deciding to table the violent stuff for later. He’s had this conversation before with _her_ and he’s hoping this will be the last time he needs to. “You should have gotten a teacher to help you. I’m proud of you for standing up to bullies like that, but… I mean, there were three of them, right?”

She nods. 

“Did you… um, know they would hurt you?”

She frowns. “ _Yeah, I knew they didn’t like me much._ ”

“I’m sorry you’re struggling so much.”

Ron can see so much of Kim in her. Kim would have done the same thing, probably _did_ do the same thing in kindergarten. It wouldn’t surprise him. (He can’t remember shit from his childhood anymore, probably because he spent half of it in the clutches of death.) 

But it’s different now. Kimmie’s little body can’t fight, and in Ron’s opinion at least… he doesn’t think she _should_ fight. Ever. He sincerely wants for her to never embark on missions again. This terrible thing needs to at least do that for her. She deserves happiness.

But what’s he supposed to do? Punish her for being a good person? Nip this hero complex in the bud so she doesn’t… become Kim Possible again?

“ _Kim would have wanted me to do it though,_ ” Kimmie signs, her eyes wide, her hips fidgeting. “ _They can take my clothes off and make fun of me all they want, I don’t care. I’m gonna do it again if I see anyone else getting picked on._ ”

Ron bites his lip. This is really hard. Looking into _her_ eyes, hearing the same shit he’s heard for the last forty years of his life. 

“Kimmie,” Ron says so carefully and delicately. “Kim wouldn’t want you to do that. She wouldn’t want you to go into trouble knowing you might get hurt.”

Ugh, he hates lying. He really hates lying. But it’s fine, she’s young, she doesn’t know how to read people yet, he’ll get away with it.

But Kimmie stares at him for way too long, and then her eyes fill with realization. Realization no nine year old could ever have. “LIAR!” she screams, tears springing to her eyes. “YOU’RE A BIG LIAR!” 

**Click.**

“Wh-what, Kimmie, I—I’m not lying!” he gets more angry than he should, because he knows who he is _really_ arguing with right now. But what is he supposed to say? That Kim was intentionally trying to get killed in duty and that you don’t _ever_ want to be like her?

“You’re trying to trick me!” Kimmie yells and lurches towards the screen, grabbing the mouse. “Kim would be proud of me, I know she would! I don’t wanna talk to a big ol’ dumb liar!”

“Kimmie, please listen to me right now, _I know Kim_ , and I just think,” Ron speaks so quickly, trying to stay calm. “She’d be so proud of you, I’m not trying to say she wouldn’t and—”

The call cuts off and Ron is alone. He pounds his desk running a hand through his hair, swearing rapidly under his breath. He really screwed the pooch on that one. 

He remembers Kim’s fucked up naked adult body facing him that night in his apartment, riddled with scars and bruises and everything else. It was a message that she would do this until she died—

—but Kim never died. She’s still alive and she’s going to chance death many times again unless he does something about it. She’s going to be lost. 

* * *

But more happened that night she came to him, he just can’t remember of it when weighed against those fucking scars.

* * *

Kim got scared when Ron started to cry, she really didn’t know how to handle his emotions, it wasn’t supposed to escalate like this. 

So she did the most basic thing she could come up with and held him, letting him sob into her shoulder. It seemed to work okay.

She rubbed his back, pretty tentatively and that seemed to help too. He liked neck rubs a lot, sort of like how she liked back rubs.

Kim didn’t want to say it. She _really_ didn’t want to say it.

This was supposed to be goodbye. To be the perfect soldier… she needed that. To go. To be a tool. To save as many as she could before she dropped. Tonight, she needed to make it clear to Ron that it could never happen between them again. Because she was dying, and was of no use to Ron anymore. No empathy, no feelings, nothing. 

But he was crying. Was it because he hated her? Did she succeed? Why did that make her sad?

He pulled back and looked at her and she held him still. She should have ran. 

She could feel her grip loosening, her arms shaking. 

_Kim Possible saves people_ , that was how she thought about it. She gave everything for everyone, and took every shot, every hit, every slash, all of it, to protect people. She knew exactly how many people she saved. She never told anyone but she kept track. 

She needed to. She needed math and numbers to justify it. Because Ron’s pain over her was something she couldn’t ever forget. 

“I wish you never met me,” the words slipped from Kim’s throat in a whisper. “You don’t deserve this.”

Ron opened his mouth but couldn’t find any words.

“You protected me when we were just kids,” she said, she couldn’t control it. “You comforted me after Global Justice ruined me… and you’ve never gone away.”

His head drooped. She had to follow him. She bent down and tried to find his eyes. “Why don’t you hate me, Ron?”

He looked up at her, eyes weary, complexion so pale. “Kim. Why can’t you just stop? I know we’ve been through this so many times, but I don’t get it. When is enough, enough?”

“I have to do this,” she got up and stepped away. This was getting to be too much. She made a mistake. She felt so fucking stupid for thinking she was strong enough to do this with him. It’s fucking Ron, of course she won’t leave him behind. “I have nothing to offer you. If I stopped today, I’d spend the next forty years thinking about what would have happened if I stayed.”

“You say that, Kim,” Ron got up too. “It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You could just _choose_ not to—fuck, no not _choose_ . That’s insensitive. It’s… work, Kim. It would be a lot of work to move on and just live your life without all the missions. _But you can be happy_. It doesn’t even need to be with me, I just… this fucking destroys me, to see you like this.” 

“You’re lying,” she snapped. “You don’t know that. How could you possibly know that?!”

“Because you make _me_ feel happy.”

Oh.

What can you even say to that. 

She turned back to him, tears already dry around her eyes and came back to him. She was done talking for the night, her jaw was already locked. And her hands were trembling too much to sign. She was sure she could do just about anything and Ron would be able to read her like a book, but she chose the most forward thing she could have. 

She took him by the shirt and gently pushed him back onto the futon and straddled him. She touched him. Tentatively at first. She felt like she didn’t have the right, but she wanted him so badly. She stripped him and loved him, and he loved her. He kissed her scars and respected them, he paced it like she needed it. He was perfect. 

Kim tried her best to love him too, she thought. She couldn’t sleep when it was over, when their naked, sweaty bodies were pressed together, intertwined underneath the covers.

She listened to Ron breathe. She watched him sleep. As much as she trusted him, this was just so vulnerable to her. No gun under her pillow, nothing to defend herself with. She fidgeted a lot, and then got nervous she might wake him by accident. 

Eventually she fell asleep. It was three months. She stayed with him for three months. They were… in love again. They kissed. They went on dates. They held hands, made jokes, went for walks, cooked meals for each other, went window shopping, they did everything. 

She had night terrors. She would wake up and scream and sob into his chest, and she felt ashamed. This started after the divorce and she didn’t want him to know. He took her to doctors, she let him do what he thought was right.

She did her best to be vulnerable. She stopped hiding weapons under her clothing. She stopped wearing suits and tried to wear dresses. She walked around the apartment in just a t-shirt and underwear, even though it scared her. 

She tried to read books. She tried to find hobbies. She tried what Ron told her she could do and he was right. It was possible. 

But they both knew it wasn’t forever. She left when the guilt got to be too much. She couldn’t forget the faces. She knew people were dying on her watch. She knew people like Drakken were ramping up to spite her. 

Kim couldn’t read. It just sort of happened. She couldn’t read at all, the words didn’t make sense. She was always lightheaded, her PTSD was getting more sensitive, and her limbs were always vibrating. 

“I love you,” she whispered one night, naked in his arms. Somehow, they both knew it was the last time they’d ever lay like this. “I love you more than anything.”

He kissed her and nuzzled against her. “Thanks for trying.”

That made her cry. He always knew how to make her cry, and Ron couldn’t remember any of it.


	9. ive tried so hard for you, im sorry it isnt working

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie has a nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: abuse, torture

Kim tugs on Kimmie’s flappy pajama sleeve for the fifth time that night. They’re trapped in the eye of the hurricane. Instead of the usual playtime followed by a storm, they awoke together in it. “Please Kimmie. Let’s just try to ignore it.”

“I don’t think we can,” Kimmie squeaks, squeezing her big sister’s hand. “Please stay with me. Please don’t leave me alone.”

Kim tentatively sits besides her, folding her hands around her legs. “Kimmie…”

Kimmie looks to her, tears pouring down her cheeks, and sits down too. “I can’t look away from this one, Kim. You don’t understand, I can’t forget this one. I’ve been tryin’, I promise, I’ve been tryin’ really hard.”

The winds roar and close in on them fast and they’re separated—or put back together?—it doesn’t really matter.

Kimmie feels her muscles burn all over, her heart threatening to give out, and force smashing into her, screaming at her to pull back. She can’t see anything quite yet, but she hears wind blowing and helicopter blades twirling. Her stomach lurches with the drop down below.

But Kim never listened, she just moved faster and broke through. The mission itself is kinda fuzzy to her. She had to kill a lot of people during it and she tried to block it out.

Then the world bleeds in like watercolors and suddenly she’s balancing her body off a helicopter’s skiff, all four limbs wrapped tightly around it. Her hair blows in the wind. 

“ _ If I fucking die doing this dumbass shit, Kim, _ ” her partner, Will Du, spits from the pilot’s chair. “ _ I hope you live to feel bad about it. But also I forgive you, so like, don’t actually. You ready? _ ”

The helicopter they’re chasing comes into focus. Drakken and Shego are probably cackling together ahead of them, so confident they have already won. A bomb is dangling off of their helicopter. In two minutes, it drops and thousands of people die. Kim can’t let that happen. 

Bullets lick the helicopter, and without any warning, Will triggers the maneuver. He fakes the crash, and the helicopter spins out of control and Kim has to jump. Of course she clears it. She flies through the air and body slams the fucking thing, nearly sliding off. It’s a metal sphere with barely any grip. But she hangs on, and once Will is far back and probably safe, it’s quiet. Drakken thinks Kim is dead too, which lets her get to work.

Kim pulls her body up, and finds the hatch on the bomb. That’s thankfully easy to open. She peers in and sees the wires. A lot of wires. She blinks. 

She looks back to the city. Back to the bomb.

_ Oh you’ve got to be fucking kidding me _ , she thinks and pulls her phone out, dialing for Will who praise the fucking lord picks up. She sets it to speaker and presses her ear to the phone so she can hear the goddamn thing, the turbulence is almost deafening. 

“You got it?” Will asks. 

Kim opens her mouth to say,  _ No Will. I’m a fucking dumbass and forgot the stupid wire sequence. Please tell me you know it. _

But nothing comes out. Her jaw is clenching. No no no no. She can’t… she can’t speak…

“ _ Kim? _ ”

Fuck fuck fuck. She moves fast, one minute left probably. Kills the call and starts a new one. Video. 

No one knows about Kim’s speech problems aside from Ron. It’s one of her many secrets. But thank God Will picks up. He’s definitely sitting upside down in a helicopter wreckage. She sets the phone inside the bomb’s hatch and brings her hands up to sign, thighs squeezing the metal as hard as humanly possible so she doesn’t fall.

“ _ Forgot how to talk. Also I forgot the sequence. Colors. Tell me colors, _ ” she signs.

“You’re… signing,” Will says carefully. “Oh shit, Kim—if you’re talking to me—you need the sequence?”

Kim nods.

“Got it,” Will says without any kind of judgment (though he might make fun of her later for this) and starts listing them all off. Red, green, cyan, purple, black, maroon. That just ate up so much time though… it’s really hard to  _ not _ look at the city getting closer and closer. To imagine the people who will just suddenly die. 

And then, there’s just one wire left. She brings her glove to it and—

—the hook—

—holding the bomb—

—drops.

The bomb falls and Kim flaps off it, the only thing preventing her from being throttled away is the iron grip she has in that stupid hatch. Her fucking phone flies into the air and she’s spinning with the bomb in double helixes like a ragdoll. 

One wire. C’mon Possible. You can do one more wire. Focus.

She kicks, she kicks really hard, and definitely breaks her ankle getting a foothold on some foothold that lets her body flop back onto the metal. She reaches in—fights off the urge to vomit as the spire they’re about to crash into gets closer and closer and—wire out. Bomb defused. 

Kim closes her eyes and then screams as her parachute blasts open and throttles her into the air, the bomb smashing the stone spire mere meters beneath her, knocking the whole thing to the ground. 

No kaboom though. That’s good. 

Rest gets a little fuzzy.

* * *

When Kim wakes up, she’s… already awake? She’s talking to someone, colors blurry again, green… Shego, Kim is talking to… Shego? In a dark room. Strapped to a stone slab. Single lamplight. She’s speaking calmly, just a regular conversation...

“‘Ope, Doc, she’s awake,” Shego cracks a grin. 

Kim tries to spit at the woman but her jaw starts moving on its own. “ _ Good, now we can finally run the  _ **_real_ ** _ tests _ ,” Kim says in an inflection that’s not her own. “ _ Ha! You were going to  _ **_spit_ ** _ at her?! You are absurd, Kimberly Ann. _ ”

Kim smashes her back against the stone, writhing, as if that will do any good. It does make her feel very conscious of the weight in her skull. Something’s in there, letting  **him** control her. She gazes up and sees the mirror. Stitches run along the side of her head. 

That’s when Drakken walks in, hands folded behind his back. “I’m upset you defused my bomb—” he starts to say, and Kim can’t resist his will, she says it along with him in some bizarre double talk. “—ooh that’s annoying,” they say together. Drakken blinks for three full seconds and Kim is released, gasping for air of her own. 

...

“Kimmie, I’m scared,” the little Kim says, nuzzling into little Kimmie’s back.

Kimmie looks back and she’s… standing with Kim in the lab? But she’s also strapped to the table. Was it like this the whole time? She thought she was reliving the memory as Kim but now she’s little Kimmie watching from the outside. Kim pulls so hard on Kimmie, crying into her pajama top. 

“I’m sorry,” Kimmie squeaks, pulling her friend in. “You feel it, don’t you?”

Kim nods shyly while keeping her head down.

… 

It’s like a hook, a literal hook, embedded into her brain. And Drakken can just stab her and unstab her, reopening the bleeding wound and slip back in. He’s a parasite and he can  _ feel _ her thoughts. She can sense his fingers groping through her mind, hurting her. She can’t do anything, he just dominates her. And his sick thoughts run through her mind, and she can’t even disagree or resist, he makes her comply. He makes her feel the same things.

When he puppets her, they’re the same person, she just has no will.

Kim tries speeding her heart up to force a heart attack, but it doesn’t work because he can control her (obviously). He grabs her pale sweaty face and squeezes her cheeks. “Aw, you worried we’re going to steal your intel?”

She tries spitting again, but he won’t let her. She pulls out of his hold and slams against the stone slab again, attempting to scream, writhing more when no sound comes out.

Drakken tuts his tongue, turning away. “No, Kimberly Ann, I just want  _ you. _ ”

Kim blinks back tears as she feels her body shrink away again. But it’s different this time. This time it’s  _ slow _ . She feels the muscles whittle away, the face loses its definition, her mind unwind, her perspective dwindling… 

Her breasts recede back into her skin, her bones condensing and scrunching her in. Tough, scaly skin become soft with baby fat. Her arms become twigs, her legs run perfectly straight with her hips, and her voice just keeps getting higher and higher. 

Her suit weighs so heavy on her body, hanging off her like she’s a scarecrow. 

She feels her teeth fall out, and the baby ones settling back in. Her gums bleed. Her assigned-male-at-birth anatomy comes in and she winces, the pain finally slowing. She’s Kimmie. 

Drakken cackles at her and she tries not to cry, the pain courses through her body still and she just wants to run away and hide.

Kim, the imaginary Kim, jumps on top of the slab and spreads her arms out. “ **_LEAVE HER ALONE_ ** !”

Drakken ignores her and explains his plan to her, clenching and unclenching his talon.

“ _ I’m going to use you, Kimberly Ann, to kill everyone you’ve ever loved. We’ll start with your good friend, Will Du. You’ll summon him here to rescue you and then you’ll stab him in the back and _ —”

Will’s death bleeds into Kimmie’s vision, like an overlapping film strip blasting by like a train. Drakken keeps monologuing and more strips fly in. Bonnie and Yori and Wade and Monique...

It’s her fault. It doesn’t matter Drakken puppetted her, barely any of his ideas were useful. Infact, most ideas he fed her, her subconscious shut down. She couldn’t help it. It’s her own brain that crafted the plans, her own talent that allowed her to get away with it.

All Kim’s training did is build her into the person who could kill all of her friends.

Kim holds Kimmie so tight but it doesn’t matter what she does, it’s done.They’re gone.

Drakken slaps Kimmie, his talon phasing through Kim and striking Kimmie so hard it bleeds from her mouth. “Speak!” he screams. “You do as I say, Possible!”

She remembers this. He needed to run more tests to make sure their sync was absolutely perfect, but she couldn’t physically speak to do the tests. She was so scared she forgot how to speak again, and even with his control, he couldn’t jumpstart her brain into remembering how to talk. Her hands couldn’t sign because they were bolted again and she had nothing.

Drakken cried with such mirth when he found out about her reliance on sign language. 

That was when Kim finally broke and cried, but then he forced her face down and made her hold it in. Her throat closed up, dry and scabby, and her body convulsed as the tears stayed in her.

She couldn’t even take her own breaths. He made her do it.

Kimmie looks to Kim for help, eyes shining, but Drakken’s so much bigger and stronger than them when they’re little and… she’s never seen Kim so scared before. Even her big sister doesn’t know what to do.

That makes Kimmie angry. She snaps the bolts off and pushes Drakken by the chest, grabbing at Kim’s hand. The two girls leap to the floor of the lab and walk off, Kimmie so tiny she slips out of nearly all of her adult clothes, her, blouse just barely hanging on. She needs to go. Try not to look back and do her best to blow this up, but then the blouse falls off and her clothes are—are—g-g-go… it’s cold and—she shuts her eyes real tight.

Kim touches Kimmie’s wrist and warmth runs through her. She tries to focus really hard and when she snaps back, she’s in a pretty summer dress with a bow in her red hair.

“See?” Kim smiles. “It’s that easy sometimes.”

Drakken slams something in his rage and stalks after the two of them. Kimmie scampers away and into her big sister’s arms, and Kim rubs the special spot on Kimmie’s back that makes her feel calm.

“I’ve tried to get rid of this, Kim, please believe me,” Kimmie whispers, voice so high and fragile. “Because I don’ want him to hurt you. B-but I can’t make him go away…”

Drakken starts to speak in unison with her, just like how it was during the laboratory tests. He repeats everything she says so mockingly, even mimicking her stutters, which makes her stutter even more.

“I n-never told D-Daddy b-because I was sc-sc-sc-sc-scared h-h-he’d g-get m-m-m-m-m-m-mad at m-me…”

“Try using sign language, Kimmie,” her big sister tells her. “Drakken’s too dumb to know it.”

Kimmie tries to smile and signs, Drakken’s arms falling a beat behind her. “ _ Daddy just thinks I was mind controlled and that was it. But it’s not. For a week, Drakken and I were the same person. He used my own thoughts to do it, he weaponized everything I am. A simple mind control couldn’t have done that.” _

Kim shakes her head. “ _ No. He made you do it, don’t say that.” _

Kimmie’s eyes water and the scenes start to play behind her, her shadow blocking some of the picture. “ _ To kill Will, I had to lure him in with a fake rescue mission and trick him into keeping it off the books. Drakken’s lies were bad, Will would have caught on, so he used my lies, my instinct… it was my poker face. It was my _ —”

Kim grabs Kimmie’s wrists suddenly, and drags herself over, crying. “ _ Make it stop _ .”

The screen probably just played Will’s death. Knife in back. Twist. Bullet to back of head.

Kimmie dips her hands below Kim’s face while her head is down and moves quickly. “ _ Same for Monique. For Bonnie and Yori, I had to be precise. I had to be stealthy. Kill without a trace. Drakken could never, nor could Shego. It was me. And Wade? _ ”

This one echoes behind her. 

_ “Check, Wade.” _

_ “...what?!” _

_ “Yes, Wade. That’s check. Look at it again.” _

_ “Oh shit, you’re right, damn, Kim. You’ve never played chess like this _ —”

Both girls flinch when the gun goes off. “ _ I’m the only one who could have done that. I’m the only one who could have been so cold. It doesn’t matter that he made me do it, it’s that… _ ”

Drakken cuts in. “...your whole life you trained yourself to become someone who could kill your friends.”

Kim pulls Kimmie in, hiding her under her thin arms, scowling at Drakken before huddling in with her little sister. “Kimmie… I—I didn’t know it was so bad…”

“You know what the worst part is?” Kimmie’s voice cracks so high. “I really tried to stop him. I tried so hard, I couldn’t sleep for a week. I had to be awake and I fought and... the only one I could save was Ron.”

She remembers Drakken using her knife fighting to cut at Ron, and it was the only time Kim was able to physically restrain him, and make it easy for Ron to dodge. If she hadn’t succeeded, he would’ve been sliced to ribbons. She even managed to trigger him asking her the question, and she blocked Drakken away from the answer.

But that was when he used the most force. That’s when he left the scars of himself within her. Doesn’t matter Ron blew him out, it’s still there. He lives in her because she resisted.

Drakken disappears, melting into black wind that circles around them, blowing their dresses around. Back to the hurricane, the lab is gone. His laugh echoes in the roar of the wind.

“I can’t forget it, sis, it won’t leave me alone,” Kimmie sobs, feeling so weak, the wind closing in on the two of them. She falls to her knees and Kim can’t do anything else but fall with her and support her. The wind howls and shrieks, and Kimmie’s fingers bite into her big sister’s ribs. “I’ve been tryin’ so hard…”

“Okay,” Kim chirps.

That gets a rise out of Kimmie. She looks up, snot on her upper lip. “Huh? What do you mean  _ okay _ ?”

“That’s okay, I believe you, you tried your best. So if we can’t make it go away—”

The wind runs through the two of them but Kimmie wills herself to stay, to stay planted, and to listen. 

Kim has to shout now, it’s so loud. “—then we’re just going to have to heal it! That’s okay too!”

The wind pierces her bones and flows through her mouth and eyes, it longs to break her.

Kimmie blinks back tears and forces her sister down, shielding her, the wind lashing like whips. She sniffs and looks down at her, and she’s so  _ peaceful. _

“Why are you so nice to me?!” Kimmie shrieks as colors fade and it all rushes to black as the ‘real’ Kimmie begins to wake up. “WHY ARE YOU DOING ANY OF THIS?!”

Kim just smiles as they both fade into the wind.

“Because silly, we’re trying to find Kim Possible, remember?”

* * *

It takes a half hour to calm Kimmie down from this one. This time, Marcia and Jonah get Daddy on a call so he can talk her through it. He sings to her again while she lays in bed with Pandaroo. 

“Daddy,” Kimmie says when she’s finally stopped bawling her eyes out. “Who’s Doctor Dragon?”

Daddy laughs softly. “ _ Dra _ **_kk_ ** _ en. Was he in your dream _ ?”

“I think so,” Kimmie says. “I don’t… remember a lot.” Only wind and laughing, that’s all. 

“ _ That’s okay, try not to focus on him. He’s in jail for what he did to Kim. He can’t hurt you. _ ”

That sounds familiar. Like… someone told her that, but her head’s fuzzy.

“Daddy… what day is it?” she drifts off, pulling Pandaroo in really tight. She wants to sleep more. Try again and be happy, have a nice sleep.

“ _ It’s Monday, Kimmie. You start second grade today, remember? _ ”

Kimmie giggles.

“ _ What’s so funny? _ ” Daddy giggles too.

“I just got through it really fast. Hee, do you think I can take today off?” Her voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. “Can you make up an excuse for me and say I’m sick?”

There’s a pause.

“ _ If you promise me you won’t overact your part and really sell it, I can give you some pointers, yes, I’ll help you play hooky today.” _

She grins from ear to ear and pulls the blanket over, and somewhere, deep in her subconscious, her two selves are smiling too.


	10. im gonna miss her so much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie makes and loses a friend.

Kim swings back and forth, muscles searing. She’s nineteen. Ron and her just joined up with Global Justice and there’s already been _so many_ dick measuring contests. Today, Agent Will Du bets that Kim can’t touch the top rod in the gym _without climbing_. “The physics are impossible,” he explains, gesturing at the dangling rope. “You can’t swing up and over.”

Kim touches the rope and notes the little noose at the bottom. A good foothold. “Five hundred bucks says I can do it.”

Ron immediately protests. No Kim. No. We don’t have five hundo to bet. Stuff like that. 

She tells him to be cool, this is how we pay our rent this month. Everyone gathers around as she mounts the rope. Immediately a plan sets in and she kicks. She kicks and kicks and kicks and she’s in the air, swinging back and forth, going higher and higher. 

She bends her head back and sees the upside down bar connected to the rope. It’s still above her eye line. Not enough. The constant swaying lurches her stomach and rocks her body. She very easily could lose her grip and fall, but Ron will probably be able to catch her, it’s fine.

“Possible,” Will calls out from down below, the echo of laughter dying on his lips. “Drop now and you don’t need to pay up. It’s cool, I was kidding. You’re gonna get hurt.”

He is _insufferable_.

But spite is one helluva motivator. 

She kicks again and flies back so fast and so hard. This time at the peak of her arc she mounts the rope by jamming one boot into the noose, leaving her only one foot to kick. She kicks and tries to match the apex of her past arc but she’s not quite there yet.

It takes three more swings to match her momentum and then finally, exceed it. She knocks her head back against her shoulders and sees that bar parallel to her. She’s at a 90° to it, and there ain’t no time like the present.

All within the span of a second, her free foot swings and lands on the rope while it’s parallel to the floor, she turns fast, slips out of the foothold and _leaps._

Kim flies and—

—it’s Kimmie who catches the top bar of the swingset.

* * *

Kimmie falls hard, wrists banging against the metal, and she squeals for a moment ‘cause it _really_ hurts. She looks down below and sees her swing fly back down, spinning in random directions. Her best friend, Jesi, a third grader, shrieks, as the swing nearly smacks her in the face. 

“Kimmie that’s dangerous!” Jesi shouts, face all puffed up.

“It’s ‘kay,” Kimmie says, climbing down the chain to Jesi’s swing and plopping in besides her. The two of them are the smallest girls in their third grade class and fit together on the same swing. Kimmie giggles despite the pain. “That was really fun.”

Jesi frowns. “If Mrs. Valentine sees you messin’ around like that—”

“I know,” Kimmie rolls her eyes as she pulls her cardigan sleeves past the bruises on her wrists. “Is it really that scary? It’s kinda easy for me.”

Jesi just shakes her head, and then giggles because Kimmie is just such a lost cause. It makes Kimmie giggle too. Even though she feels kinda confused now. She thought everyone could play like she can? She doesn’t even really know where she learned to do stuff like that. It’s pretty athletic.

“Sorry I scared you,” Kimmie apologizes, giving her friend a tight hug. Jesi likes hugs and stuff. She likes handholding a lot too, she’s really special and pretty with her round glasses and freckles and pigtails. “Hey, um, did you ask your Daddy about the sleepover?”

Jesi nods. “Um, he says he needs to think about it. He said some mean things about you. But I, um, I told him he’s wrong about you! A-and he’ll, he’ll think about it.”

Kimmie sighs and kicks at the air, the swing rocking slightly. Jesi doesn’t like swingin’ too high though so Kimmie slams her heel into the rubber mat so they don’t go further. “Some day, I’ll have long hair and I can take the medicine so no one’ll know I’m even trans.”

Jessi reaches out and takes Kimmie’s hand all of a sudden. “Well I think you’re really pretty right now. Ac-actually, I got you a present.”

Kimmie turns. “Oh, but I didn’t get you anything…”

“It’s okay,” Jessi pulls a bow out of her blouse and brings it up to Kimmie’s head. Her hair’s a little longer now, about three inches. Not enough to fall down her neck, but it’s getting there. The metal clip slides in and hooks, and Jessi goes back to holding Kimmie’s hand. “My older sister gave it to me as a hand-me-down but I don’t really like bows. Do you?”

“Um, I dunno,” Kimmie shrugs. She’s not sure how much of a girly girl she wants to be. She just wants to be herself. But anything that can make people stop calling her names would be helpful. “Th-thank you. I’m s-sorry your Daddy’s so dumb. I wish you could sleepover at the shelter but Marcia said I’m not allowed to have friends come over,” Kimmie says. “Wh-what are you gonna do for summer? I’ve been kinda nervous ‘cause I’m gonna be stuck at the shelter and my roommate Luke is getting taken into a foster family.”

“I think I’m going to camp,” Jesi says, clenching the chain tight, frowning.“Can you come to camp with me?”

“I don’t think so,” Kimmie frowns. “I’m sorry. I wish I could be a better friend.”

“It’s not your fault,” Jesi tightens her grip on Kimmie’s hand, and it makes her chest feel really warm. Jesi is… really pretty. She’s never thought about that stuff before, she doesn’t even know if girls are allowed to fall in love with girls… does it mean she’s a boy if—it doesn’t matter. She just wants to be Jesi’s best friend forever.

Jesi opens up a book across their laps. “Didya read Chapter 5 last night?”

“Oh, oh, yeah, I did,” Kimmie grins. They’ve been reading detective books together. “I think that it’s the clown guy. He probably did the robbery…um but there’s not footprints! ‘Cause he walked on his hands.”

Jesi almost screams. “I thought that too!”

* * *

Kimmie likes most of her classes, except music. Music is dumb. She thinks the recorder is especially dumb. Gym is okay. She likes running around and playing, but everyone always accuses her of winning ‘cause she’s older than everyone, even though she’s still littler than some of the kids. She gets an A anyways. Kimmie gets lots of As.

She’s still worried about summer though. It’s coming up in only three weeks! She wants to keep going to school, so she can play with Jesi and learn stuff.

At the end of the day, Kimmie’s teacher, Mrs. Valentine, asks Kimmie to stay after. A bunch of kids go “ _ooooooh!_ ” to tease her and stuff. But Kimmie just shakes her head. She never gets in trouble. Which means only one thing... 

After all the kids leave, Mrs. Valentine comes over to Kimmie’s desk and sits in front of her, twisting over the back of the chair to look at her.

“I’m going to fourth grade next week, aren’t I?” Kimmie sighs. 

Mrs. Valentine frowns for a second, but holds her smile high. Grown-ups don’t understand that Kimmie sees right through that stuff. “Why is that bad?”

“‘Cause Jesi’s my best friend and I don’ wanna leave her, I never get to have friends.”

“You’ll make other friends, sweetheart.”

Kimmie nods, and her eyes burn. She’s trying not to cry so much, because she’s noticed the other kids don’t cry a lot, and she’s supposed to be the most mature one. “I haven’t made any friends in any grade, Mrs. Valentine. Everyone’s confused ‘cause they think I’m littler than them, or older a-and… I get confused too.”

Mrs. Valentine folds her arms together on the back of the seat. “Kimmie, I know it’s hard to understand with your kind of upbringing, but it’s important you grow up around kids your age, especially when you’re smart enough to be in fifth grade next semester.”

Kimmie nods. She still thinks this isn’t fair. She’s getting tired of living everything so fast. 

Kimmie marches out of the classroom, thinking hard. Maybe she can call Daddy and see what he thinks—

“Kimmie, what’s wrong?” Jesi asks. She must have waited outside the classroom ‘cause she’s worried about Kimmie. She’s a really good friend.

Kimmie looks up, cheeks red. “Oh no, Jesi, you gotta catch the bus!”

“It already left,” Jesi frowns. “Can your friend Jonah drive me home?”

“I think so,” Kimmie takes Jesi’s hand, super tentatively. But it seems okay, she accepts it. “Um. I got bad news. I’m going to fourth grade until the end of the school year, Jesi.”

Jesi freezes.

“I’m sorry,” Kimmie wipes her eyes. “I’m gonna miss you a lot.”

Jesi doesn’t look back, she just nods. “We can still play during recess! Um, next year at least, ‘cause you’re gonna be at a different building for fourth grade… maybe we can do one of the after school programs! I heard that’s a ton of stuff once you’re a fourth grader, like cooking class and science club.”

Kimmie frowns. That’s not really the problem, but… maybe she’s being silly, she doesn’t really know why she’s so upset ‘cause Jesi is making sense. “Okay! Thanks Jesi, let’s go find Jonah.”

* * *

Daddy’s upset about something, and Kimmie kinda knows what it is, but he’s not mentioning it so she thinks it might make him sad to ask. But he’s never called her from wherever he is right now. Maybe he moved? 

“I’m so happy for you, Kimmie,” Daddy smiles. “You must be so excited.”

“Um,” Kimmie frowns. “I dunno, Daddy. I’m gonna really miss Jesi. She’s my only friend I’ve made in school, and I’m her only friend too.”

Daddy nods, and opens his mouth to say something, and then stops.

“What?” Kimmie asks. He always thinks she won’t notice these things, and he gets all silly and flustered when she catches him.

“You are so on top of it, _ugh_ ,” Daddy says dramatically. “I was gonna say, Kim almost skipped a grade when we were kids, but she stayed behind to be my friend for the same reason.”

Kimmie’s eyes widen. “Ooh! So can I, can I—”

“No, Kimmie, I don’t think you should do that. You’ve only known Jesi for a few weeks, right?”

“Yeah, but…” Kimmie bites her lip. This isn’t going anywhere. “Um, I have a question.”

Daddy doesn’t say anything.

“C-could I stay in third grade ‘til the year’s over and do summer school for fourth grade?”

“Uh, I don’t know, Kimmie,” Daddy says, itching his neck. “I don’t know if they’ll have time to drive you, I dunno if they do buses for summer school or not.”

Kimmie nods. “I don’t even know what I’m gonna do for summer.” She looks up playfully. “ _Maybe_ I’ll go outside all day and start looking for Kim again.”

Daddy just sighs and looks away. He’s not laughing at her being silly like he usually does. So she sits up straight and looks right at him. 

“Did you move, Dad?” She noticed a couple weeks ago that a lot of the other kids don’t call their parents Mommy and Daddy anymore, and that if she’s really gonna be a big kid, she’ll have to do that too. 

“ _Woof_ , Dad?” Dad raises an eyebrow. “I’m in too deep with you.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind,” he swats the air. “Uh, yeah. I moved. It’s just temp while I figure things out, I’m with one of my coworkers right now.

He seems sad about moving though… she asks her next important question right away, “Are you growing a beard?”

“Uh, no, I just haven’t shaved yet, today.”

“Ewwwww!” she sticks her tongue out. “You grow that much hair overnight?”

“Y-yeah, ha ha, definitely… hey Kimmie, let’s—”

“Why are your eyes red—”

“—okay, um. Kimmie?”

“Yes Dad?”

He takes in a deep breath. “Remember when you asked me if I was going home to scary stuff?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, yeah. Your Dad’s not doing his best. It’s why I can’t be there for you right now. B-but it makes me really happy to hear from you so often. You’ve been… blazing so many trails.”

Kimmie doesn’t know what that phrase means but she thinks it might mean she’s doing really well. “I’m really smart, huh? It um, k-kinda feels like I learned this stuff before. I acc-accidentally overheard um…” She realizes that Jonah or Marcia might be listening and starts to sign. “ _I heard Marcia telling Mrs. Valentine that they thought I was going to need to spend the whole two terms in kindergarten. So I guess they didn’t think I’d be so smart._ ”

She hesitates, and drops her hands to her sides, shuffling uncomfortably. “Dad?”

“Yes Kimmie?” he asks. 

“Um. Can we be friends?”

He stares. Blinks and stares some more. “W-wait… b-but Kimmie, we are friends.”

She shakes her head and looks at her knees. “Friends tell each other stuff. I know I’m a little kid but you can—you can still t-tell me about stuff. I wanna help you too.”

“I don’t…”

“D-D-Dad…” she still can’t find the courage to look at him. “I know you’re sad and it’s why you can’t come here to take care of me, I know I might be in middle school or somethin’ before that happens. And it’s… it’s okay if…” She looks at him and winces, head swinging down again. “S-s-s-sorry. I just know you’re sad and it makes me sad.”

Dad doesn’t say anything for a little bit. Then she hears a distinctive sob escape his lips before getting chomped away. She looks up, soft tears at the edges of both of their eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “You… you just really remind her of so much. You don’t make me sad, Kimmie, it’s okay.”

“Are you s-sure?”

“Yes. Yes I am.”

* * *

Kimmie struts through the abyss, Kim dogging at her heels. “Kimmie, stop! We’re gonna make new friends, okay?”

Kimmie just stays silent, posture rigid. Her hands are glowing as she reaches through her own mind to summon an appropriate memory.

“No more memories, Kim! They’re all bad!”

“No!” Kimmie pouts, turning on her heel and suddenly she’s in a mousey teacher’s outfit with wide rimmed glasses. Her hair extends until it can tie into a tight bun. A pointer appears in her hand and she smacks the air, which shimmers until fading in. A project screen.

Light shines between the two girls and the scene starts rolling immediately. Kim is twenty years old and on a mission with Will Du.

“It’s a happy memory,” Kimmie sits on the ground, as a desk slides in around Kim. The scene immediately stops as Kimmie bursts into giggling that rocks her whole body and sends her glasses sliding down her nose. 

She gets up and wipes the tears from her ears, sliding into the same chair as Kim, just like how her and Jesi get to sit in the same chair. “Sorry, I was just messing with you—” she freezes as she realizes she’s only as tall as Kim’s chin.

“It’s ‘kay,” Kim laughs. “You’re just little ‘cause you’re being my silly little sister.”

Kimmie blushes. For a moment it runs through her mind, _am I doing this wrong? if I was so successful in the mind merge, would this really be happening to me? Why am I so okay with being the little sister?_ She suddenly feels very silly wearing her teacher’s outfit, but she doesn’t want Kim to know she’s embarrassed either, so she leaves it on.

…

Kim wipes the sweat from her brow, loosening her collar. She just killed a guy who had Will in a headlock. She’s only been back as an agent for like, three weeks. Yet her killer instincts have returned so easily to her, like driving a car. She hates that. But it was either the henchmen or Will. 

Sucks Drakken got away though. 

Will walks up to her, smiling. Which is always weird. He smiles, like, a lot. She didn’t see him as a smiler before.

Kim nods towards the exit and starts walking off, only for Will to get in front of her with his arms spread. She stops. Sort of amused. “What is it this time? Paperwork?”

“No,” he drawls pointedly. “I… I need to talk to you. Person to person, and our comms are dead down here. This might take a while, do they have a break room in this one?”

Kim thinks for a second. “Y-yeah… what… okay, I’ll just—go with it?” 

They walk together for some time in silence.

…

Kim looks to Kimmie and whispers like she doesn’t want to disturb any audience members, “Isn’t he the snooty guy?”

“He used to be,” Kimmie whispers back, holding Kim’s hand because it makes her feel good. Starting tomorrow, she’ll be a fourth grader and won’t get to hold Jessi’s hand as much anymore. 

She’s really going to miss Jesi. That’s why Kimmie is showing this to Kim right now. 

…

Will sits at the villain’s breakroom table while Kim rummages through the cabinets for some snacks. Not only is Drakken an evil bastard, but he has the _worst_ snacks. Fig bars? Get the fuck outta here.

Will twiddles his thumbs, oddly quiet. “Okay, so for starters. You have a bug. In your head.”

Kim freezes and turns back. “What?”

“Mhm, we all get one, d-don’t worry!” he briefly panics. “It’s removable, I know an ex-agent who removes them for free. I’ll connect you.”

“O-okay?” The only good thing Kim can find is cereal so she just goes with that, pouring some out for Will first. “Thanks for telling me. Um, honestly Will, I—I actually really appreciate you. I miss working with Ron a lot, I’m so used to him being with me all the time and…” She squeezes her arm. “...you’re one of the good ones.”

“Thanks,” he says softly, refusing the offered milk. Of course Will Du eats his cereal dry. What was she expecting? “Next thing is, um, you know how everytime you refer to me as your _partner_ to Betty she makes that face at you?”

Kim imitates perfectly. “Yeah, she’s such a bitch.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Will snips, and he seems very serious. “I’m not _technically_ your partner, and I don’t like that no one is talking to you about this; I’m your handler.”

“You’re my… h-handler?”

…

“A handler is like your guardian,” Kimmie squeaks, leaning her cheek against Kim’s shoulders, holding her whole arm like a pillow. “Does that make sense?”

“Thanks for explaining, Kimmie,” Kim whispers. “You’re so smart.”

Kimmie blushes. She bets Kim only tells her that stuff because it makes Kimmie all flustered.

…

“Yes, it’s because, um, you have… issues, I’ve heard. Please don’t be offended by this, or like, you can _be_ offended…”

“Will, are you okay?” Kim asks suddenly. “You’re super nervous all of a sudden.” She waits a second. “Shit, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—we’re just coworkers, I didn’t mean to pry—”

“N-no, Kim, it’s fine,” Will says softly, a crack in his normally nasally voice. “I have social anxiety, I also have a major depression disorder and it makes me do stupid things sometimes. We have a lot more in common than you think, I’ve just been conscious of my health struggles longer than you.”

Kim tries to smile for him. She really wishes Ron were here. Ever since the incident with her Drakken rampage she’s just been scared she’ll do something really harmful one day. Ron is the one to help her open up when she’s in too much restraint. 

“I don’t think you need a handler, I think it’s disrespectful to you, I see myself as your partner, and I just… I want you to know that.”

Kim gets a little bashful and looks away to eat her cereal. “Thanks.”

…

Kimmie starts bouncing up and down in her seat, sliding up and down her big sister’s arm. “This is my favorite part, are you ready?”

“Yes Kimmie.”

…

Kim looks up with sudden inspiration. “Hey. R-Ron and I are, um, we’re going out to see this musical he’s really excited about, it’s an adaptation of some comedy he references all the time, I don’t really get it but—well… we have… an extra ticket… UM! But you know, you don’t—you don’t _have to,_ and if I’m pushing the line right now, I’ll—”

“Really?” Will blurts out, apparently having missed the last half of what she said. “You— _me_ ? I thought you hated—” He looks around as if this might be a prank show then exhales like someone just punched him in the gut. “—yeah I’d love to. Are you sure—I’ll shut up, I’m making it weird— _wow_.”

Kim cringes, mostly towards herself. “It’s awkward, right?!” 

“Yes!” he leans in. “Like, when you’re a kid, it’s like _hey want to come over this weekend?!_ but as an adult? Everyone’s _busy_ and I don’t know, I’m like, a spy y’know I go around, I save the world, I still got time to hang and—you’re very bold, Possible. You’re very—you’re braver than even I.”

Kim gets up and pats him on the shoulder to get going. “Uh, _duh_? I’m the one who just took the shot of the century to save your fucking ass. C’mon.”

…

The scene ends and the screen fades, leaving the two girls in darkness. Kimmie feels Kim’s big hands on her tiny shoulders and sniffles. Sniffles turn to whimpers and those become tears that grow into sobs and then wailing. Kim pets Kimmie and keeps her warm. 

“Sh, sh…” Kim runs a hand through Kimmie’s bun. “...do you need to take a nap?”

Kimmie runs her sleeve across her nose. “I’m not a baby. I’m jus’ sad.” 

It always bothers her how high her voice gets when she’s upset, she squeaks like a chipmunk practically. 

The desk gives out from under them and they land across each other criss cross applesauce style.

“What’s wrong?” Kim asks from a distance. “I don’t get it. You’re gonna make new friends, you were really brave in that thing you showed me.”

Kimmie shakes her head and looks away. “I showed you that because, um… th-that was the last time I made a friend. A real friend. Before Jesi. It was twenty years ago.” 

Kimmie scrunches up, hiding her face. “It’s not easy for me. An’ I just thought, with Jesi… maybe it could be like R-Ron. I know I can still see her, I just… know I have to keep making friends. And it’s sc-scary.” She hesitates. “Kim?”

“It’s okay, Kimmie, you can talk to me.”

“Thanks,” her lips quiver, she always feels like she needs to ask for permission. “I d-dunno if I’m so sad and anxious all the time ‘cause I’m nine, or if I’ve always been like this. I don’t—feel good about needing a big sister. I feel like a big baby.” She touches the ground beneath her and scrunches up. “I’m h-h-happy th-that I—I—I—I—” she covers her mouth, she can’t talk again. 

Her hands gently move through the air. Slowly and elegantly, hands flapping like butterflies.

“ _I’m happy I’m not conscious of any of this stuff when I’m awake. Because then Daddy would be able to tell I’m still here, and he would hate me so much for behaving like this._ ”

Kim crawls closer. “Kimmie… you’re hurting yourself. We’re kids. We’re not ‘sposed to get so upset over being so emotional, and I think Daddy would understands anyways. He’s nice.”

Kimmie backs away. “ _That’s the problem. I’m nine, but I… I’m not really. I have all this baggage that only an adult can carry. It doesn’t matter that I did that mind meld thing. If anything, it made things worse.”_

“It does matter Kimmie...”

_“I don’t even get to keep my old name. I have to be called Kimmie.”_

“Do you want me to call you Kim?”

Kimmie’s face gets red and she just screams. Screams into the abyss and it’s this high keening that hurts her own ears. She looks back up in a cold sweat, head throbbing. Kim looks like she might start cryin’ now. Great.

“ _That’s what I’m saying. I like being Kimmie. I like sleeping with Pandaroo. I like having a daddy. I like my little girl pajamas. I like recess. But I’m not supposed to. If this happened to Will, he’d have been driven. He’d be trying to fix this. I’m just behaving like a little girl and crying because I don’t get to be with my best friend anymore.”_

“Kimmie, I want you to look at me and focus, okay?”

Kimmie sniffs and wipes the tears from her eyes.

“Would you want to go back? If you could really fix this… do you really think it would make you happy? To be a grown-up again and get beat-up going on missions?”

Kimmie raises her hands to sign.

“Think about it for a second first, okay Kimmie?”

Kimmie drops her hands, and then she starts crying again. She wants to be held but Kim won’t come over to her, and she’s too anxious to ask for help. 

“Do you want me to go away?” Kim asks.

Kimmie looks up, hands shaking, and crawls over, falling on top of Kim and squeezing her. She pulls back, wags her finger, shakes her head, and makes a heart shape with her hand.

“Th-thanks,” that’s what breaks Kim and gets her crying too.

Kimmie signs. “ _I want to be a little girl. I don’t want to get hurt anymore, I just want to have fun and be happy. I really want to just try to be happy. But if I had the power to do so, I know I would try to reverse this. Because I can’t stop myself and_ —”

Kim gently takes Kimmie’s wrist and moves it away. “Let’s play, okay? I don’ want you to keep getting yourself worked up.”

Kimmie tries her best to suck it up and nods fiercely. “Okay.”


	11. i should listen to you more often, huh?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie needs to figure something out.

“Kimmie stop! Don’t do that, you’re just going to hurt yourself.”

This has happened so many times. Almost nightly now. Kimmie runs away from her big sister and does something bad. Kimmie is always proven wrong and she cries in her sister’s arms until it’s time to wake up. But this time—this time… 

Kimmie  _ knows  _ it’ll be okay. Tonight she will prove something to herself, she’ll end a project she’s been tinkering with for years now. She’ll cure her depression and it will all just finally stop.

Tonight the abyss is a sphere and finite. A steel walkway runs from one end to the center, where Kimmie works. 

Kimmie stands tall at the center of it all, her tired hands on the console, her wide eyes darting around rapidly. She’s forty years old, and she hates how dysphoric she feels like this. She thought being in her old body would make her happy, but if anything, it makes her feel worse. 

She’s too tall, it feels like she’s on stilts and is going to fall over soon. Her limbs are heavy and are harder to move around. Her mind moves fast in ways she can’t control. Her voice is deep and scares her, because it’s not who she is. And she feels  _ hungry _ for more; she wants to enjoy this body so badly. It’s hers! She was like this for so long and now it’s scary and confusing and she hates it, but she doesn’t want to be a little girl tonight either.

She presses a button and screens flare in through the dark. It’s thousands, if not millions of large screens, all showing faces and profiles and events. One by one, the events, most of them disasters, change to a myriad of screens showing faces. Victims.

This is Kim Possible’s work. These are all the people she has ever saved. She always kept track, because she needed to know. She needed to know it was worth it. She’d crawl home, covered in blood, and look in the mirror at someone who hates herself so much. She needed a number.

Now, with the power to rake her hand deep through her memories, she can be  _ exact. _

“Kimmie, can we play?” Kim asks, tugging on Kimmie’s sleeve.

Kimmie pulls her hand away and ignores her big sister, throat dry. “I’m almost finished. Leave me alone.”

“Can you at least be a little girl with me? It makes me sad to see you like this.”

Kimmie winces because she actually feels really scared being bigger than her sister. She would feel a lot safer if she was a kid again, and they could hug and play together, but the thought of that makes her tremble. It’s hard to hit the buttons she needs to click on the control panel she made up in her imagination. She wishes Kim would just go away. 

“I don’t feel like being a little girl today with you, I’m sorry.”

“You’re lying,” Kim blurts out. 

Kimmie twists her head back in rage, growling behind clenched teeth, and looks away, trying to ignore the little girl but she can’t. She slumps over the console, her grip digging the metal corners deep into the crevasses in her palms. Her cheeks burn. “Please, just let it be tonight. Let me have this. I’m sorry if I’m hurting you, sis. I just… need this.”

Kimmie flicks another switch as more screens change. They light up brighter and sounds filter in. Explosions and disasters and grapples and orders and commands, it all just morphs into one horrible soundscape that scratches at the ear. 

If Kimmie focuses, she can identify certain moments, mostly ones she wants to forget. 

“Kimmie, this is scary,” Kim says. “I don’t like this.”

“It’s us,” Kimmie says simply. “It’s our life.” 

Kim looks around, wincing when she sees something particular violent. “We’re not… going to keep doing the missions when we’re big, are we?”

Kimmie narrows her eyes, speaking softly and without focus. “It feels like we might.”

The sounds die down, the light darkens.

“So much of who I used to be lives in us. My traumas, my fears, my survival mechanisms,” Kimmie says coolly. “We’re still helping people. There was that boy in kindergarten, it’s sort of scary, ‘cause no one’s trainin’ us and Daddy isn’t here to—” she freezes. 

_ Daddy. _ Not Ron.  _ Daddy.  _

She punches the console, face screwing up as her whole body squirms, shrinking in on itself. Her fist drags up as she shrinks below the console and finally, falls back to her when she’s little again. She collapses in a heap, but tries her best to stay big. But all she can manage is to keep her scars and her stupid suit. She probably looks ridiculous, clearly trying too hard to look tough so she tries to make it go away, and fails. She can’t do anything right.

She hears her high voice cracking with sobs, and draws her knees up to her chest. “I keep messing up, I don’t ‘member enough about being a grownup to even play good pretend,” Kimmie draws her skinny, knobby knees up to her thin arms and hides her round face. “I wish Drakken just killed me… I really wish he just killed me.”

“You don’t mean that,” Kim says, advancing on her tentatively.

“Yes I do!” Kimmie screams, voice getting so high it’s hard to understand what she’s even saying. She’s shaking and scared. She doesn’t like her big dumb suit, it’s really stiff and not fun to wear. “I hate this so much, it’s not fair!”

“You hate it because you’re really good at being a little girl, and making other people happy,” Kim says, getting onto her knees, towering over her little sister, making Kimmie crumple in even more. “You don’t think you deserve to be happy, but you  _ do. _ ”

The algorithm is running on its own now. Soon, Kimmie will know the number. 

Kimmie sniffs so loudly, hands twitching. She wants a hug so bad, she wants to hold Kim and cry into her shoulder and to take a nap and pretend everything’s okay. 

Kim’s sneakers creak across the metal, echoing all throughout the sphere. “Kimmie, please look at me.”

Kimmie shakes her head. 

“Please.”

“No,” Kimmie pouts. “I don’t wanna. I wanna know how many people I saved so I can stop being mean to myself.”

“It’s not that easy,” Kim coaxes, getting down on her knees. “Please look at me. Tell me what you’re afraid of. I know you’re really scared right now.”

Kimmie draws deeper into herself.

“It’s okay to be scared, Kimmie,” Kim whispers.

Kimmie flinches. She hates this. She hates being little, she hates being smaller than everything, she hates not having a real daddy. She feels so scared all the time, of everything, of everyone, even her big sister tonight. She’s supposed to be tough and be protectin’ people but she can’t do anything now.

Kimmie sniffles, and still doesn’t look up. “Our birthday is coming up.”

“Mhm. I’m really excited for it. Aren’t you?”

“Y-yes, kind of, we get to go bowling with Jesi,” Kimmie admits. “B-b-but… Kim, wh-when we became a kid… remember? We had just turned nine, a-a-and now… we’re turnin’ ten.”

Kimmie looks up, eyes watery, lips quivering. 

Kim’s hair is long enough to be a bob cut now. It’s soft and frames her face cutely. Her malnourished body has filled in, and she’s much taller than she was when she was ‘born.’ Four feet tall and one and a half inches. She’s grown so much that a lot of the clothes Dad bought her in the first weeks had to be replaced with bigger ones. 

She’s still smaller than other kids, but not by nearly as much. She can read. She can do math. She can have fun, and she’s really good at making other kids smile. She’s a human being that Kimmie is secretly really proud to have become.

But Kimmie, the inside Kimmie, is a whole head shorter than Kim. Kimmie played pretend little sister too good and now she’s stuck.

Kimmie holds back tears. “It’s been almost a year. We’ve been a kid for almost a year. A-and we’ve grown up lots but I still feel really—” she hiccups. “—imma-immature down here, I know I’m being a big baby an’ I’m r-really sc-sc-sc…” She raises her hands up and they’re trembling. She does her best to sign the word,  _ scared,  _ but she can’t even get her hands to make any sense. ‘Cause she’s havin’ one of her bad days.

“Do you want a hug?” Kim asks.

Kimmie breathes in and breathes out, and tries signing again.“ _ No. I want to know how many people we saved. _ ”

Kim hugs her anyways because she knows Kimmie is lyin’ again, and all of her tears come back. She really likes being held, she regrets pushing so many people away when she was growing up, being held like this is nice. 

“Kimmie, it’s not going to make you happy. It’s going to hurt you even more, please… let’s take a nap together. We can go find Pandaroo.”

Kimmie reaches underneath Kim’s thin arms and squeezes her own knees, wrinkling her pants. She would love to hold Pandaroo right now and cuddle with her best friend and pretend everything’s okay. But she’s not supposed to like stuff like that. She’s ‘sposed to be playing pretend grown-up. 

There’s a click. It’s done. All she has to do is hit the button. She sniffs and looks at Kim hard. “ _ I’m sorry I’m no fun tonight. _ ”

“It’s okay,” Kim hugs her around the shoulders and stands up, giving Kimmie some space.

So she gets up and pulls herself up to reach the buttons. She almost slips off but Kim catches her in time, holding her by the waist. Kimmie blushes and pets Kim on the head. She really is her best friend. “ _ Thank you for supporting me, even when I’m misbehaving. _ ”

Kimmie clicks the switch and the thousands upon thousands of screens shift and turn into golden light. They flip and fly to the center of the sphere, where a phantom knife slices a pocket into reality that the light can escape to. Kimmie watches it all carefully, and then jumps back to the floor. She immediately turns to Kim and grabs her, bowing her low to the ground and uses her own body to shield her from getting blinded by the light. 

“Whatever happens, you’re a good person, Kimmie, okay?” Kim says and Kimmie nods.

Kimmie’s voice bites down on itself, straining so hard to escape. But she still can’t talk. She signs, tears in her eyes. “ _ I love you, Kim. _ ”

“I love you too.”

The golden light builds and builds, becoming stronger and stronger as people, as lives saved, merge with it. Flickers of the missions seep through. Kimmie sees herself swinging through cities, chasing murderers and mad scientists. She sees herself saving people from burning buildings, disarming bombs, and so much more. She takes in a deep breath and unconsciously grabs at Kim’s hand, shrinking back down again to her size. 

Then it ends. 

20,824,563

Kimmie gets up, neck craning hard against her shoulders to make sure she’s seeing it right. “Tw-twenty… million? I… that’s…”

She stands still. 

And she feels tearing coming in again. Not happy ones. She nearly falls over, it seizes her so fast. Because she doesn’t feel  _ anything _ . She nervously looks around the room, running a hand through her hair. Legs jittering, she gets up and looks back to Kim, shaking.

There’s two screens besides the small girl. It’s her and Ron. 

It takes her a second to process exactly what that means. “But…” 

Her big sister keeps her mouth shut, looking away, fidgeting. 

Behind Kimmie is her lifetime of work. Twenty million lives that would have died without her. But those twenty million don’t include the two people she loves the most. The two she hurt the most. 

And seeing her profile, her old face, represented to her as this other person…

...she understands now.

The golden light behind Kimmie is beautiful in its own right, a sphere made of looping energy orbiting together. It’s warm and comforting to be underneath. Far away from her, Kim stands in the dark with the golden Kim and Ron besides her. It’s hard to see still, and just extending her hand towards Kim, she can feel the temperature shift, how much colder it gets to move away from the sphere of twenty million.

That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all. Kim deserves everything, not her. Not Kimmie. 

Kimmie closes her eyes tight and runs, not looking back. The cold hits her so hard, her skin erupts into goosebumps as she passes through the black and only when she feels Kim’s arms around her does she open her eyes again. 

Kim strokes Kimmie’s hair as the two dim lights from the Kim and Ron projections drift closer to them. The sisters are level with each other, the same height. Twins once again.

“Th-thank you,” Kimmie stutters.

“For what?” Kim whispers.

“For helping me find happiness.”

She wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <_<
> 
> >_>
> 
> im desperate for attention please comment if you have anything to say lmao
> 
> next few chapters will be more 'plot' focused, I know we've been in the abyss a lot lately


	12. ha, you always helped me forget it all, thanks anyways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kimmie watches a movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: graphic depictions of violence, past major character deaths

**YEAR TWO** **  
** _ (kim is 10) _

Spotlights everywhere, cutting through the dark, men screaming in a panic as they try to find a fourteen year old Kim and her chum, Ron. They giggle behind their clenched teeth, holding hands as they sidle their way down a thin ledge. 

It was so much fun when they were kids. They made it into a game. They played pretend to get through it. If they hadn’t, they’d have been to scared to go out there and work.

For ten year old Kimmie, it’s pretty scary. Or at least, what she’s got going on in her head is making it scary. She decided that after Daddy got her new jammies and a puffy jacket for this winter as a birthday present, that she should get him a gift too. Because he’s sad and she wants to help. But Marcia said she’s not allowed to go out on her own, and shouldn’t worry about gifts anyways. _ Your daddy’s an adult, he can take care of himself _ , Marcia assures her. 

Kimmie doesn’t care. So she breaks out overnight, finds a box to sleep in, and spends the next morning pickpocketin’ so she can get enough money to help Daddy. It’s a little harder pickpocketing now that she’s not so tiny anymore, but she gets the fifty bucks she needs, and wanders downtown. 

She’s paranoid though. She bets there’s loads of people looking for her. Searchlights and flashlights scanning the walls, milk cartons with her face getting delivered, and she feels really guilty and scared. She didn’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings, and now everyone’s probably scared, looking for her. 

At some point, she starts crying. She can’t focus on getting Daddy a gift because she feels so upset now. So she goes into the first business she finds, some kind of electronics store, and calls the shelter. They answer in tears, she tells them where she is, and they tell her to wait. The nice man at the cash register shows her to a viewing space with comfy chairs she can wait in, and she takes a seat. He gets her some chips from the vending machine and it starts to feel a little better. 

Then she hears something on the TV.

_ Kim Possible. _

Kimmie looks up and sees Kim’s face on the screen. She hasn’t seen Kim Possible in so long. Sitting here, staring at that face, she understands so much about Kim that she didn’t get when she was nine.

Kim’s eyes were dark, with heavy fatigue creases under them. Her auburn mane was frayed and dry with more than a few white hairs. Her left cheek was consumed in a leathery patch that extended from her eyelash to her jaw. Her perpetual scowl wrinkled her face.

Was… Kim not happy?

That makes Kimmie sad. Even worse, Kimmie understands a lot more words now, and she’s starting to get nervous that all this stuff has already been said to her and she just didn’t get it at the time. Because the movie she’s watching sounds kinda sad. She doesn’t think these people liked Kim very much at all.

“... _ died last December. Though a body hasn’t been recovered, sources close to her confirm she’s gone.” _

Kimmie’s tears slow as she settles into the sofa; Kimmie still doesn’t believe she’s dead. She feels bad for not finding her already, maybe then the news people wouldn’t lie about her and say mean things. They have already insulted her a few times.

The eyepatch lady who was mean to Daddy once appears on the screen. She has a name: Betty Director. She’s just as ugly—or, err… mean looking, as Kim was. Her jaw is so tight, the tension pumps through the skin under her earlobes.

“ _ Possible was always… on, _ ” Betty explains. _ “It was unhealthy how attached she was to our work. She quit twice, but both times she came back and begged me to let her back in. _ ” 

Betty looks away for a moment, cackling under her breath. Shaking her head, she looks back at the camera. “ _ She liked to hurt people, I think. Kim never sought help from a doctor, at least to my understanding, I think she knew what an official diagnosis would do to her career. If you ask me, I think she was a sociopath.” _

Kimmie squints. That’s mean. She sdoesn’t know what that word means, but she remembers Daddy called Betty that at the hotel. Sociopath.

So Kimmie doesn’t believe her! Kim would never wanna hurt people, she’s nice and a hero. 

“ _ It was about, oh, twenty years back when _ —”

The footage cuts to show an aerial view of some city. Kim is dashing across rooftops and—

* * *

—desperate, she needs to catch him. She cannot let Drakken get away after the shit he just pulled on her. She hates that she’s crying while running; she tells herself it’s just the wind. She’s running so fast that the wind is slamming her and making her cry. But no, she’s hurt. Her limbs twitch in agony. She needs to relieve herself of all this… this anger and—

“ _ Do you have any idea how reckless that was?! _ ” Betty snapped at Kim later. 

A grenade arcs through the air and rolls past Kim’s feet. It blows, and the whole rooftop caves in. She dashes across falling stones and leaps to safety, not bothering to look back. Catch Drakken, she told herself. That’s your job. You catch Drakken. Stop him.

She didn’t catch him.

“ _ So many people could have been hurt.” _

“ _ Oh, as if you fucking care about  _ **_people_ ** _ ,”  _ Kim hisses. “ _ Just say what you’re really thinking, Betty, that you’re upset we’re in lawsui _ t!”

“ _ I AM _ !” Betty screams. 

The helicopter is about to take off. Shego’s on board. She’s done this before. Jump at the rope ladder, tackle the baddie off. But the copter is farther than ever before, she’s never cleared a jump like that. So Kim runs faster.

“ _ Your plan fucking failed anyways, _ ” Betty sneers. “ _ They got away. _ ”

Kim remembers falling and nearly breaking her back. She leaps anyways, and grapples onto the helicopter skiff. Her future self snaps. “ _ It was either that or take the long route, at least I tried _ —”

Slip.

Fall.

Crack. Kim hits the pavement and breaks through it, the world drifting far away from her like a toy on a playset. She glides through the abyss and suddenly a criminal is in front of her. Fully armored, town square. Assault rifle in hand. But she’s faster on the draw.

She lands in that town square in Iowa City, pulls her gun, and shoots the bastard’s head open. Blood flies everywhere and people scream as the body flops uselessly to the ground. She stomps over to the corpse, sneering, tuning out the squeal of a five year old girl who just saw her kill someone. 

Cameras swarm Kim from behind and she’s on the steps to a courthouse, wrapped up tightly in her snowy coat. “ _ GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME! _ ” She just snaps all of a sudden. She can’t take it. Weeks upon weeks of court dates and meetings and the media requests just kick up with every day. No more. She grapples a camera and hurls it to the ground, live on TV. ABC catches her killing the CNN feed. 

Another lawsuit. Great. 

* * *

Kimmie has to look away at some point, it’s too much, it can’t be real. She doesn’t believe it. It’s just a movie! They’re lying!

“ _ I always knew there was somethin’ wrong with that one, _ ” a southern drawl overlays the footage of a screaming Kim hurling a tripod, camera, and cable twenty feet. 

Then a tanned man with clean cut silver hair appears on the screen. He settles deep into his tall, tall leather chair, and tents his fingers.

Jack Hench, CEO of Hench Co. 

“ _ She had too much fun doin’ those missions _ ,” he drawls. _ “Prolly got to her head, I think. I mean, who would willingly do that to themselves?” _

* * *

A fifteen year old Kim tosses a shattered Attitudinator onto Hench’s desk, Ron lurking in her shadows, pale and sweaty from the worst day of his life. 

“ _ What is wrong with you? _ !” Kim snaps. “Turning good people bad? Bad people good?! Is this just some kind of game to you?”

Hench laughs, and leans deeper into his chair, chin settling close to his chest. “ _ My, my, I suppose my invention worked, didn’t it?” _

“ _ Yeah, it did, _ ” Kim spit. “ _ Don’t you dare. Ever again. No more. _ ”

He laughs, just so damn  _ amused _ at her anger. He pivots in his chair. “ _ Well, I got the copyright and the right to make whatever it is I damn well please so _ —”

Kim stomps towards him, and Ron lashes out, grabbing her by the bicep. “ _ Let it go, KP, please _ .”

“ _ No! _ ” she snaps. “ _ Please, Ron. We’re both exhausted, Jack. We can’t… this isn’t funny, if you’re creating something to polarize, like, good-and-bad you  _ **_must_ ** _ know you’re on the wrong side of all this and _ —”

Kim becomes older. Ron disappears. White hairs sprinkle through her wild mane. Once again, the Attitudinator is sparking on his desk. But this time, she’s smiling so much it scares even Hench. 

“ _ Too bad about Team Go, _ ” Kim shrugs. “ _ I couldn’t reverse it. Had to kill them. Is that what you wanted? _ ”

Hench shrugs. “ _ I had no idea Electronique was going to try doing that thing with Team Go again _ —”

“ _ You fucking liar,, _ ” Kim waves him off, turning on her heel. “ _ I don’t care for your bullshit explanations. Go ahead. Make another one. I’ll just kill the victims again, I guess. You’ve been good at forcing me to do that. Doesn’t bother me very much anymore, so... _ ”

Hench furrows his brow. “ _ I don’t follow? _ ”

She looks back, still grinning. Like a jack o’lantern. “ _ All of you motherfuckers are only in this game because you want to destroy my soul, yeah? Well congrats, you did. Like ten years ago. I’m a walking corpse. So keep it up. Keep fucking with me. I can already see it happening to you, Jack.” _

He sweats. “ _ Wh-what do you mean? _ ”

Her smirk only gets wider. “ _ Oh, you’re blinking faster than you usually do. You’re taking longer pauses. It’s because you’re seeing what this has done to li’l ol’ me. And you know it’s your fault. So you’re gaining a conscience. Finally. _ ”

He says nothing. Because he can’t. All he can do is tremble before her.

“ _ Try it again, _ ” she eggs him on. “ _ Watch me. I’ll drop every motherfucker you send my way. I watch you when you sleep, Jack. I know you have nightmares nowadays.” _

* * *

Jack laughs and leans back, finger passing across his lips. “ _ I tried to talk some sense into her. She was… a real firebrand at the beginning, but towards the end… _ ”

Kimmie wishes she didn’t run away and watch this ‘cause it’s scary. It’s making her feel all funny inside, and small. It’s like one of her nightmares. She wants to call Daddy so he can sing to her like he does whenever she gets really scared. But she doesn’t remember his number and—

“ _ She became so cold. Most people, when they realize something ain’t fun for them anymore, they stop. But Possible? _ ”

* * *

Frugal Lucre was always such a weakling, and yet he had killed people. His schemes were silly yet real people died. Because of him. 

It came to her, just what she could do, when she was in a Smarty Mart storage, alone with him. She reviewed the security camera placement earlier, this particular spot was in the white space between feeds..

She was dragging him by the handcuffs when all of a sudden she grabbed his head by the cheeks and cracked his neck. It was easy to frame it as self-defense. Planting the gun wasn’t hard. 

From the shadows, Duff Killigan leaps at her with his golf club and swings and she’s on top of a castle in Scotland. She yanks the driver from his hands and clubs him in the head. She goes for her walkie and stops. He’s just lying there. Twitching. Probably in a lot of pain.

The club is still in her hands.

She spins it and holds it high over his head. Brings it down and cracks it through his skull—

—her arms stop when they hit Motor Ed’s back. He charges at her like a bull, smashing into her waist and ramming her into the garbage wall. Immediately she snaps and her eyes go red. There’s a chain near her. It’s so easy. She kicks him off her. Grabs the chain. Wraps it around his neck. And pulls. He doesn’t even last thirty seconds. 

Will walks in on this one. They try to work it out—

“ _ People have died over my inaction, _ ” she signs to Will. “ _ No more. They need to die. All of them.” _

Will sighs, scratching his cheek. “ _ Okay. I’ll help you.” _

“ _ Yes, _ ” she didn’t know what was happening to her, why she was having such horrible blood cravings but she  _ needed _ this so badly. She needed these awful people all to shut up and leave her alone.

“ _ Okay, then… let’s k i l l t h e m.” _

* * *

DNAmy, Camille Leon, Falsetto Jones, the Seniors, Hank Perkins, Big Daddy Brotherson, and so many more. Brutally murdered. It was professional as it could have been. Under Will’s guiding eye, it was all so easy to cover up. 

* * *

Kimmie scrunches up against the sofa, sniveling. This isn’t fair, she still doesn’t believe them. She knows Kim was good! 

B-but if they’re telling the truth… she doesn’t know what to think. If she should even call herself Kim Possible…

No! Stop it, Kimmie! Kim was good! She wouldn’t hurt so many people. Kimmie’s crying and can’t move. She doesn’t remember how to talk or to sign or how to do anything else but watch the television. She forgets her name too. She forgets that she’s even alive. 

“ _ Ron Stoppable, famously her former partner and ex-husband, has refused to make any comment towards Miss Possible, _ ” the newscaster says. “ _ Early this January, he was evicted from his apartment, and has reportedly been taking care of a little ten year old girl in New York City who is also named Kim Possible _ —”

Everything else is just white noise, there’s even a picture of her on the screen. She doesn’t know where they got that, she doesn’t know why they’re doing this, b-but…

Someone touches Kimmie’s wrist and grabs her arm when she doesn’t respond. They shake her and she tries to look down. It’s Marcia. She’s crying and saying stuff Kimmie doesn’t understand. Kimmie just looks back to the screen. Maria glances past her shoulder and rushes for a remote, shutting it off. She touches Kimmie’s cheeks and keeps talking. 

Kimmie blinks. She doesn’t… understand… anything. Marcia picks her up when she won’t move and brings her home. 

That night, Kimmie is alone in her bedroom with a laptop out. She knows people are outside her door worried about her, listening in. Daddy is talking to her and it’s really hard for her to focus on anything he says. He’s crying though and she feels really bad, ‘cause she only left the shelter to get him a present.

“Kimmie,” Daddy’s white lips tremble. “Please. Talk to me. Sign to me. Anything.”

She blinks back tears and raises her shaking hands and brings her hands up to sign, but… she can’t remember. The hands fall back to her legs uselessly and she frowns, looking at her lap.

“Do you remember how to talk, Kimmie?” Daddy asks.

She shakes her head.

“It’s okay, Kimmie, it’s okay, honey.”

That doesn’t make her feel anything better. She sniffs and wipes her eyes. She doesn’t wanna be treated like a little girl, she doesn’t feel like a little girl at all now. She feels like she just grew up really fast. 

She draws her legs up to her chest and buries her face behind her knees. Big girls talk though. Big girls can use sign language. She shuts her eyes tight and pretends that Kim is holding her, rubbing her shoulders, telling her how strong she is and stuff. 

Kimmie looks up and Kim cheers for her. Kim is good. Kim didn’t do anything wrong.

She looks up and shakes her head again, tears falling from her eyes. She can’t remember anything. Daddy probably thinks she’s really stupid and won’t ever want to talk to her again. 

“Don’t feel bad you can’t remember how to talk or sign, Kimmie,” Daddy says softly. “Kim forgot a lot too. She had, um, she had a lot of issues. I’m really sorry you saw all that.”

Kimmie nods. She feels so dumb. Was she the only one who even liked Kim? 

“Y-y-your… mom—”

Kimmie looks up. Her  _ Mom _ ? 

Daddy swallows some phlegm. “Your mom was in a lot of pain, honey. She hurt people sometimes, but I promise you… she was trying to get better, it’s just—no one let her.”

Her Mom is… Kim? She thinks she understands what Daddy’s tryna do. He wants her to feel like she’s really part of his family. 

“The lady with the eyepatch, Betty, she said horrible things about Kim in that movie, but she actively refused to let Kim get help. Because Kim worked better, at least by Betty’s standard, when she was sad. Betty was bad, Kimmie. Do you understand?”

Kimmie looks up dimly and nods.

“Good,” Daddy’s lips pinch together. “The other thing is that people are complicated. We all do good things, and bad things. And they weigh against each other. Some people are bad even still, but… I really think Kim was good. As ugly as it got sometimes, she was so kind and soft when we were together. She was a lot like you sweetheart.”

Kimmie’s heart stops for a second.

She was like… Kim? Is that a good thing?

“When my pet mole rat died, Kim stopped what she was doing and she came home right away, and—”

* * *

Kim holds Ron for what feels like hours. She finds him on the floor in their apartment, sobbing. She doesn’t try to move him, she just kneels down in front of him and holds him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder, and she rocks him from side to side.

At some point, she just starts singing. A lullaby. A soft lullaby into his ear. It helps so much. It’s how Ron knows how to take care of little Kimmie whenever she has nightmares.

He looks up and she immediately flinches, sliding backwards. “Sorry I scared you,” he says, not expecting that to be the first thing to come out of his mouth.

She raises her hands. “ _ It’s okay. What do you want to do? _ ”

Ron shrugs and tries signing too. “ _ I don’t know. I’d like to hold a funeral, if that’s okay. I know it might be expensive… _ ”

She grabs his wrists and looks at him with watery, kind eyes. “ _ Ron. He was your best friend. It’s okay, I understand _ .”

He gulps back a sob and falls into her arms again and cries. She plays with his hair. 

A few months later, Kim brings a cat home. He’s gray with chipped ears and matted fur. He gets so scared and runs under the couch. Ron leans up from the bed and looks to Kim.

“ _ I found him in Dementor’s lair, _ ” Kim signs. “ _ I think he was getting experimented on. I didn’t know what to do, so I just took him. _ ”

Ron smiles and falls back into his pillow.

One thing leads to another and that cat, Scrappy, stays with them. He’s too old to have a chance at getting adopted. He dies a year later, but for the next nine years, Kim and Ron adopt many pets. They rescue animals from the streets of New York and foster for them, adopting them out to loving families and forever homes. It softens the blow. It was all Kim’s idea. 

The cats really took to Kim. Every night, at least four cats would be nearly on top of her, so much so that she’d be hard to cuddle with. 

It only stopped when they both became too poor to keep it going. It might be the only thing that Ron really regrets.

* * *

“—she made me happy, Kimmie. Please trust me, okay?”

Kimmie smiles. She feels all soft inside. She likes animals a lot. Especially kittykats. She hopes she can get a cat some day.

“The movie you saw, it aired a while ago. It was like, May, I think. Some nice people came to me, because they felt the documentary was, uh, a little mean spirited towards me and my life. And they helped me put together a GoFundMe campaign—”

Kimmie mimes a question mark.

“—it’s like, an online fundraising thing. Point is, I got some money to help take better care of you and um, heh, for this Christmas, Kimmie, you’re going to fly out and spend your Christmas vacation with me.”

Kimmie’s eyes get wide, and she feels disconnected again. He must be lying’. There’s no way…

“I’m going to show you a buncha stuff, okay? I live out where Kim and I grew up, I think you’re going to really like it here. It’s going to be about two weeks. I worked hard all year to make sure I could get this time off for you.”

Kimmie frowns.

“Kimmie, what’s wrong?”

She shrugs. Even if she could remember how to talk, she doesn’t think she’d be able to explain it. Something just feels wrong.

“I know honey. I know you’re really scared, but it’s going to be okay, I promise you. M-maybe soon, I’ll—I’ll be able to take you in for real.”

Kimmie blinks, looking up at him so abruptly. Does he really mean...

“Yes, Kimmie. As your Daddy.”

She bounces up and down in place. He’s gonna adopt her for real!!!!! 

“Kimmie, I promise you, a lot of that stuff was true,” Daddy tells her. “But they’re wrong about Kim. She was a good person, and she was really trying. She cared about people more than most, she’s—she’s a lot like you. And you’re a very special, amazing person, okay?”

But if Daddy is wrong about Kim, that means… then Kimmie is bad too. She hurt those boys in kindergarten even though she didn’t hafta. But she doesn’t want Daddy to feel bad! Because Kimmie loves her daddy so much, and she loves Kim too. Her… m-mommy.

She’s gonna find her and prove to everyone how wrong they are.

She brings her hands together and makes a heart. At least she knows how to do that. 

* * *

He mutters under his breath, fingers twisting in his hands, cuffed at the wrist. If he were allowed a paper and pencil, he’d be writing but he can’t, so he mimics the movements of writing. They can’t stop him from that. Numbers appear in his mind, adding up quickly. 

He smiles all the way, mouth slowly lifting. He hasn’t smiled since Shego carried Kimberly Ann away. The sight of his archfoe shrunken and scared and weeping in Shego’s arms. But then that  _ bitch _ had to ruin it. Shego just _ had _ to promise the child she would help her grow up again. Well, Shego had to die for that. 

It wasn’t long before they threw him in the slammer and shut him out. Recently, they made the mistake of allowing him to sit with the other prisoners in the break room and luck be a lady tonight, he’s watching it right now. The documentary about what a wretched human being Kimberly Ann was. He loves it. 

But he can hardly focus. He needs to count. They’re showing clips of her past endeavors, of her life, and he needs to know. How many. He’s always kept track, he needs to know. So he can nullify it. 

But something snaps his concentration. It hits him so suddenly. It’s just a newsbyte of information. 

_ “Early this January, he was evicted from his apartment, and has reportedly been taking care of a little ten year old girl in New York City who is also named Kim Possible _ —”

What. How. 

He drops his imaginary notepad, getting up slowly, eyes widening. Show a picture dammit. Prove it. 

They do. That’s… definitely… her.

HOW?! It was supposed to wipe her memories! How did she… that fucking brat. He needs more information, he needs to know what happened, but no. These moron rattling on how much of a failure Ron Stoppable is, as if the world didn’t already know. They completely ignore the most important part of the story.

The little brat fucking lived. And… remembered her name? How?!

She found him. She found Stoppable. Someone starts yelling at him, guards probably. A gun clicks. He doesn’t care, they can’t kill him. He keeps muttering, trying to count the numbers, but it’s gone, he lost his train of thought, his math isn’t making sense, he… can only see red. 

She’s  _ alive _ .

Gah.

Of course she is. She survives everything. She always gets up. He was foolish to think this would have worked. Fuck, he can’t stay here. He needs to break out and slit her throat—but no, that isn’t enough either. The death of Kimberly Ann Possible must be his masterpiece. He must crush her, he needs to see her squirm and surrender before he twists the knife.

They grab him. He’s not allowed to stand up. Too much of a threat, they say to him. They’re scared  _ shitless  _ of him, and now they’re dragging him away.

He digs his heels into the grooves between the tiles in the floor, and gnashes his teeth.  _ He has it.  _ That quickly, he has come up with his plan. It’ll take years, but the number he needs is  _ finite _ now. At the very least he made her a child, she can’t save anyone for a long time now. 

Keep counting, Drew. He manages to figure out another sixteen thousand lives saved before they drag him away and toss him into his cell. The moment they’re gone and he is alone in darkness, uncuffed at least, he crawls across the dust smeared cement and finds his chalk. It’s ground to the size of a fingernail, but it’s enough. He marks up the wall. One two three four cross, six seven eight nine cross, a web of numbers and tally marks. 

It takes an hour to catch up. He could have just written the number but he prefers having the visual of every number, every human soul, around him. It expresses how many on a scale a mere written number cannot ensnare.

He laughs.

Eleven million six hundred fifty seven thousand twenty nine. He’s not even  _ close  _ to the ‘good’ she’s done for this world. But he has nothing but time to figure this out. He laughs to himself, slumping onto his bed in the corner, eyes rolling up to the ceiling.

This isn’t over, Possible, he thinks. Enjoy your new childhood while you still can. I’ll be waiting for you when you’re ready. 


End file.
